


Stalker

by art_by_daphneblithe, looktotheskies, noncorporealform



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Assets & Handlers, Bucky Barnes's Trigger Words, Canon Divergence - No Hydra Takeover, Escape, F/F, Gore, Gun Violence, Illustrated, Lesbian Sex, Not Canon Compliant, Pining, Rescue Missions, Slow Build, Spies & Secret Agents, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-07-25 13:54:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16198853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/art_by_daphneblithe/pseuds/art_by_daphneblithe, https://archiveofourown.org/users/looktotheskies/pseuds/looktotheskies, https://archiveofourown.org/users/noncorporealform/pseuds/noncorporealform
Summary: The Black Widow’s last mission was meant to be simple: escort an asset for the former KGB before selling secrets to the CIA in exchange for a new life. But after witnessing the awesome powers of Wanda Maximoff, Natasha can’t let her stay a prisoner in their hands. On the run together, they are mercilessly pursued by an unstoppable killer who will never give up the chase--not until Natasha is dead and Wanda is contained. What began as a journey of survival becomes something neither of them would have expected from each other. AU in which Natasha tries to escape her old life, but can’t leave Wanda behind.





	1. Prologue

 

The car hummed under her feet, the van bulleting down the uneven road. The engine, old but sturdy, seemed to rattle the floor, beyond what the road was doing to the van. Her eyes were fixed on the wall, on a rusty spot between the heads of two men who refused to look at her.

“Why did they bring the Widow along?” whispered one of the men to another, thinking she couldn’t hear him.

“She has something special in store for them,” the other man replied in a whisper.

Natasha felt the van lurch and reached for a hand-hold. The van squealed to a stop. She grabbed her rifle, cocking it and checking the chamber. It was a matter of seconds. The men in the van followed suit, lining up to exit the rear.

“Go!” came a voice and the door flew open—

#

A second vehicle was coming to clean up the bodies. Until then, they were laid in a row, their faces covered, in what had been a grand foyer. Their organization had believed they were being covert, hiding in a rundown mansion, somewhere in the countryside. But they had found them.

This was a sight she was used to. The body in the red shirt, and another in yellow, had been hers. The others had killed more, but those were hers. The colors of their shirts seemed to glow in the darkened foyer. When she blinked, she saw them behind her eyelids.

A drop in the bucket, a mark towards her debts.

“Widow,” a sharp voice intruded.

The team leader pointed up the stairs with his thumb. Whatever was upstairs, he wanted it taken care of quickly. She could oblige, knowing a little what awaited her upstairs. There had been thirteen people reported in the building. Twelve corpses lined the floor.

Each footstep on each stair was like a drumbeat in the quiet, secluded old mansion. Graffiti in Russian lined the walls as it wrapped around and rose, from stencils to artwork to simple tags. Whatever this place had been before, the previous squatters had enough respect to make way for the new owners. Not enough respect not to give them away, but still.

She followed the soldier that was waiting at the top of the stairs. Down the long hallway, the door to the master bedroom was ajar. She could hear the blubbering before she even got there. The begging, the pleading. The sharp sound that could only be the skin on skin of a hard slap.

They were making a mess of things.

The door creaked open. The display was a mess. They’d tied him up so fast that the only thing keeping him down was his own fear. A soldier stood intimately close to him, violating the man’s personal space. Shaking and crying, the prisoner could only stare directly at the soldier’s shiny, perfect boots.

“Out, all of you,” Natasha said.

The soldier standing in front of the prisoner sneered at her. He looked petulant, like a boy who cannot wait until he’d grown enough to defy his parents. He waved to the other two men in the room and they departed. Natasha waited until they were gone, moved down the hall, and out of earshot.

She rushed to the side of the man in the chair, skidding to a stop. Her hands were nearly shaking when she pulled the loose gag out of his mouth.

“It’s okay,” Natasha said. “It’s okay. It’s okay, okay? I’m here to help.”

“No—,” he said. “One of them, you’re—”

“Look, we don’t have a lot of time. I can help, but you gotta trust me, alright? I’m one of the good guys. They just don’t know it, yet. Where’s the package?”

“I’m not telling you people anything.”

Natasha’s heart twisted in her chest. It was going to be hard to convince him. He had no reason to trust her, and time was balanced on a tight wire. She pushed his glasses back up on his face, trying to give him the dignity of his better eyesight, pushing his hair out of his face.

“SHIELD knows about this operation,” Natasha said. “I couldn’t save the others, but I can get the assets out of here.”

“SHIELD?” the man whispered. “My god. If SHIELD knows—there’s no time, is there?”

“’Fraid not. Come on, you gotta help me out here. I can’t promise I can get you out, but the assets still have a chance.”

“You don’t know what they are, do you?”

“The KGB wants them, so I’m guessing whatever they are, it’s best they don’t get them. SHIELD has an exit plan for them, and I can get them there. I can’t promise they can extract you, but—”

She could read his face as he searched every corner of his brain. Distrust dissipated and he nodded, looking Natasha in the eye.

“They’re below the cellar,” he whispered. “It used to be a safe room for dissidents, but we converted it into a lab. She’s down there. Please, get her out. She doesn’t deserve this.”

Natasha felt her face shift. The desperation and fear was gone. It was a relief, not to have to act any longer and let her expression go cold. There was an apology on her face, but not much else.

“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no, no—”

Natasha stood up, deadened eyes catching the face of the man who was watching from behind the crack in the door. He strode in next to the now-blubbering man in the chair.

“She’s in the basement, under the cellar,” Natasha said. “Take a team, look for passageways and hidden compartments. There might be more down there.”

“Please, you can’t,” the man cried. “She’s—”

Natasha didn’t flinch when the soldier shot him in the head.

His body slumped in the chair, his glasses falling off his face to chink on the hardwood of the floor. The massive hole in the head left no subtleties about what his chances of survival had been.

She gave the soldier nothing. He sneered at her, as if she’d been the cause of the inconvenience of the prisoner before stalking out of the room. He shouted in sharp Russian and there was a flurry of activity. Heavy sets of boots stomped down the stairs and into the cellar, where the search began.

She stayed with the prisoner, for a while, his drooping body stuck in the position the ropes and chair forced on a body without muscle resistance. Saliva dripped out of his mouth, the blood around his temples dripping along with it. He began to smell.

In her bones, Natasha knew this didn’t have to happen.

But it had.

No use crying, and on and on—

#

By the time Natasha made it to the basement, they had already uncovered the secret room. They wouldn’t have found it without the dead man upstairs, uncovering a deeper level to the already deep cellar. They had to remove the boiler, an ancient, dead thing that blocked off the entrance to a cavern that stretched further under the house. She peered around the crowd of men, craning her neck to get a better view down the long corridor, and into the lighted room at the end of it.

A hand went up between her and the safe room before she could walk any further.

“Your job’s done here,” said the soldier that had shot the prisoner in the head.

Natasha cocked her head at him. Her mouth tilted and she looked him up and down.

He was too relaxed. His rifle was positioned lazily across his chest, but not held to standard procedure. His cockiness did not extend to being prepared for anything sudden. She could kill him in five seconds, and it would be his own fault. She knew he saw the judgmental flick of her eyes and she sized him up and made himself taller, getting a better, but still not professional, grip on his gun.

She turned her back on him, marching up the stairs.

# Natasha watched the perimeter, waiting to pile back into the van with the soldiers and the asset. She scanned the farmland around her. Little white flowers peeked through tall grass, and birds fluttered around a tree nearby. The beauty of it stretched out into the horizon, nothing of cities or their pollution in sight. She saw mountains beyond, hugging the land like a curving arm. Even the air smelled honeyed and fresh. Her mouth turned up at the corner, though they could not banish the heaviness in her eyes.

“Pretty,” Natasha said to herself.

There was a scuffle and the steps of boots behind her. They had something with them—a figure in white and blue. A hospital gown. It had been a lab, she remembered. Also, burlap, covering her face. It was a girl, though she couldn’t see her face, her feet dangling when the soldiers let her sag too much. If she wasn’t unconscious, she was close enough that she couldn’t properly use her legs.

The team leader made a motion with his hand. Natasha came forward and piled into the back of the van with the rest of the soldiers. And the asset.

She was drugged, after all. She was swaying and humming with unease, but she was conscious enough to stay upright. Not quite on her own. Strong hands in tac gloves gripped her hard enough to bruise.

It hadn’t been the first asset Natasha had brought in. She wished she hadn’t had to do it again. The fact remained that she would have been brought in no matter what. They would have found that lab, even without her. She’d just expedited the transaction between victim and killers.

She looked the faceless girl up and down again, preparing for the long drive with the specter of guilt in the van with them.

It was like a dozen missions she’d been a part of before. Natasha had decided that this girl sitting there, not knowing where she was, scared and alone—this would be the last ounce of debt she would own.


	2. Chapter 2

“I just want to know that this is legit,” said Schafer.

“Do you think I would hedge my future on a lie?” Natasha said.

“ _You_ _’re literally The Black Widow_.”

He was right, in his own way. There wasn’t a lot that she could do about building trust between herself and the CIA. Of all things, a lot of faith was going into this deal. Faith on their part that she wasn’t going to double-cross them, faith that the American government would hold up their end of the deal.

Standing in the street, leaning against a rail overlooking the river and standing as far apart as possible to seem uninterested in each other, the two of them made quite a pair. Him, a scrawny red-head, nearly as pale as snow, and she, looking like some beautiful stranger. It might look even pathetic that he was talking to her. His face scrunched up.

“I like Kiev,” Schafer said.

“Really?” Natasha asked.

“All this medieval shit. The buildings and bridges and stuff. The tourists can go to hell, though.”

“You could write the brochure.”

Shcafer laughed, turning his head to Natasha. He was waiting for her, and she sighed.

“I’ll deliver the package,” Natasha promised. “If I can’t get the drive to you directly, I have it memorized. The identities of every double-agent in your government that I can get my hands on.”

“Well, I hope you do mean _every double-agent_.”

“I have a good memory.”

“You know something? I’m going to miss our meetings. Because once this is done, I really don’t plan on ever laying my eyes on you again.”

“That’s the idea.”

Even Schafer didn’t know where she would be going. Natasha had some idea, but no real way of knowing. All she knew was that it was a new life, and American life, something simple and hidden. And if she didn’t like it, or just didn’t like that the CIA knew where she was, it would be simple enough to disappear, when you’re in the wind already. She suspected that Schafer already knew that was her plan. It might be a contributing factor into why he didn’t like her too much.

Of course, she also suspected she might have killed one or two people he’d known pretty well.

“Why did we have to meet in Kiev?” Schafer asked. “Ukraine’s usually a little outside your stomping grounds.”

“My stomping grounds are everywhere,” Natasha chided.

“Well _excuse me_. I forgot who I was talkin’ to for a hot minute. I’m asking if you’ve got any heat on you before we risk the extraction.”

“I’m just transporting an asset.”

“Something I should know about?”

“You wouldn’t want to know what you can’t stop.”

“Fair enough. Don’t need any help with the insomnia.”

“Warm milk works wonders for me.”

“Go to hell, Romanoff.”

#

Natasha’s quarters were built for four people, but nobody would be assigned to the room with her. Fear was the obvious motive. It also wasn’t the correct one. They avoided her for another reason altogether. She knew about her own strangeness. She wasn’t about to take it personally.

She had considered that this would be the last time she saw any of her possessions. She didn’t have much of anything. A few shirts she was comfortable in, necklaces that had worked for various covers, the gun that felt most comfortable in her hand. Schafer had said to leave everything behind. Everything else she wished she carried with her had already been taken.

“Widow,” came a voice at the door.

The soldier from the mansion, the one who had shot the prisoner in the head. He still had an air of inconvenience about him, and seemed to want to get whatever was about to happen over with. Natasha nodded, once, and he left.

She strapped her favorite gun to her thigh holster and went to escort the asset.

#

They hadn’t told her much about the mission except to escort the asset to Kiev. She’d done that and thought her part was over, but she had been invited into something she hoped wouldn’t take much time. Her extraction was the next day. Her absence would be more conspicuous if she were in the middle of something.

Before now, Natasha hadn’t gotten a good look at her face. She’d been covered up or locked in a room by herself. At the sight of the girl, Natasha started.

Her eyes were dead. She slumped in the chair, moody but not resisting. After her eyes, Natasha’s attention moved to the collar around her neck. It glowed a constant red, and Natasha swore she could see the red reflected in the girl’s eyes. She was pretty, but like a rag doll waiting to be plucked off her chair. She’d seen that look before, on assets. Dead behind the eyes as they know resistance brings pain and the boredom that makes up the time between their uses.

A thrum went through Natasha’s body. She wished she had taken Schafer up on the offer to be extracted that day. She had the bone-deep knowledge that the sight of this girl, left behind, would wake her up in the middle of the night. But it wouldn’t be the only person she’d abandoned to just such a fate. She pushed it down and told herself, no more. This would be the last of it.

“Bring out the traitorous dog,” the soldier said.

With a great deal of noise and circumstance, a man was brought out of a room and unceremoniously dropped onto his face on the concrete floor. Natasha didn’t watch him—he was simple enough to size up. It was the girl Natasha was interested in watching.

The girl fixed her eyes on the man on the floor. Her face was tight with apprehension, though she hadn’t changed her posture. She hadn’t noticed Natasha yet, which was by design. Whatever was going to happen in that room, she was going to detach from it as much as possible, but she wanted to make sure she was unseen while seeing everything.

The girl was lifted up by her arm and she let herself be pulled to stand in front of the man on the floor. The way she looked at him was with pity, but with a sense that he was well beneath her.

The soldier moved in between them. He held something up to her face—a simple device with an intimidating red switch and switch on the side.

“I want you to remember who’s holding this,” he said.

She didn’t break eye contact with him as he flicked the switch but nothing about the girl’s demeanor changed. He moved away from the two of them and she followed him with her eyes. Natasha had the distinct feeling that she could melt his face if she were only a little bit angrier.

“I don’t know anything,” the man on the floor said. “I’m not important. I’m a glorified secretary. That’s all.”

Natasha expected to hear the soldier say ‘Widow’ in that tone again and Natasha began mentally preparing the techniques she could employ to get this man to talk without too much pain, maybe even finding a way to save his life. But that moment never came.

“You know what to do, witch,” the soldier said.

He said ‘witch’ with the same sputter as he had ‘Widow.’ The girl, the witch, had that face-melting look again, but the soldier only held up the device and taunted her with a shake of it.

Her gaze turned to the man on the floor, who seemed to be turning into a puddle.

“Please,” the prisoner said. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“You don’t have to tell us anything,” the soldier said. “We’re just going to take it. You know what to do.”

It was the sort of thing they would usually say to Natasha. She narrowed her eyes, watching the asset being steered closer to the blubbering man.

The nameless soldier rounded on Natasha. He loomed over her, tall and smug. He seethed and leaned into her space.

“I wanted you to see,” he said. “All the ways you’re about to be obsolete.”

Natasha stared him down, not quite glaring, but still with the promise of danger in her eyes. He shifted back and turned to the young woman.

“What do you want from him?” she asked the nameless soldier, tired and defeated, accent thick and Sokovian.

“Everything,” he said.

The Sokovian girl glared at him with deadly eyes, a hatred that Natasha had seen before, and always admired. He held up the device with the threatening red button, but her defiance was still an awesome thing to behold. Nevertheless, she was bending. She turned to the prisoner.

The nameless soldier clicked a different switch, on the side, subtler than the threatening one. The red light on the girl’s collar switched off.

Natasha almost let herself gasp, having to work her neck, swallowing it down.

Her eyes were red.

They were more than just red. They were glowing, the same red as her fingertips, and the trails that were beginning to come out of her in wisps like smoke.

There were few things that Natasha had a hard time believing when she saw them, but she began to wonder if there was something in the water. Something strong. Something really strong.

Those red wisps reached out and filled the space around the prisoner’s head. His entire demeanor changed. His face was soft and slack, like he was just waking up from sleep and getting his bearings. That passed. He grit his teeth and grunted. Natasha recognized the sight of mental resistance. He swayed and shook his head. The girl’s teeth gritted as she concentrated harder.

“I’m sorry,” the girl said.

She grunted through gritted teeth and the prisoner began to scream.


	3. Chapter 3

Natasha’s face was still dripping where she had splashed water on it. She held on to the old sink with white-knuckled force, breathing, trying to keep her heart from beating. She stared herself down. Really looked at herself, as if it were another person standing in front of her. She was beginning to get disappointed in herself.

“You are not prepared for this,” Natasha told herself.

It was magic.

It was at least something like magic. The Soviets in the old regime had tried and failed to produce something like what Natasha had just witnessed. Psychics. People who could control minds. And it had been Hydra who had done it. Whatever they had produced in her in that lab under that house, they had made what the CIA and the old guard of Soviet parapsychologists had failed to do. Hydra had made her. Natasha had taken her. And now she was a weapon in _their_ hands.

“You weren’t trained for this,” Natasha told herself again, leveling her eyes at the person in the mirror as soon as she began showing weakness.

And she was just a girl. A kid. Not that Natasha was that much older, but she had stopped being a kid a long time ago. She’d read the report that Hydra had left in that cellar. She had been an ‘acquisition.’ Meaning kidnapped, or tricked, or both. She had gone from one prison to another. And if they figured out how to control her properly, or even duplicate the experiment—

The dominoes fell in Natasha’s brain and she saw how they would all fall, and the image they would make. It looked like the world, unrecognizable.

“God damn you,” Natasha said to the mirror. “I told you not to call on this number unless it’s an emergency,” Schafer said.

“This is one,” Natasha said.

“Really? The extraction is _tonight_ , and you’ve come up with an emergency?”

“Trust me on this, you do not want to sleep on this.”

“Well, what is it?”

“The asset I brought in yesterday. The one that was supposed to be simple. It got un-simple. I need a second extraction.”

“Nope. No. Nuh-uh. Natasha—”

“You don’t want to say no to me on this one.”

“I do, actually, I want to say no to you a lot.”

“ _Schafer_.”

“Have you been sitting on this?”

“I just found out what they’re doing with her yesterday. We don’t have time to chit-chat. But let’s just say there’s some real creepy stuff going on with this girl we brought in. She’s—powerful.”

“How do you mean, ‘powerful?’”

“I mean I watched her turn a man’s brain to jelly with her mind.”

There was a long pause from the other side. Natasha tapped her foot impatiently, waiting for Schafer to say something and determined not to break the silence first.

“Are you fucking with me right now?” Schafer asked.

“Is this really when I would be doing this? I saw it with my own eyes. It’s real. And they’re using her on people already. I don’t know what else she’s capable of.”

Silence from the other end of the line. Natasha’s chest was tight with fear, the kind of anxiety she thought she’d be in control of.

“This sounds like some MK Ultra shit,” Schafer finally said.

“That was you guys,” Natasha reminded him.

“Yeah, well, we only ever tried to turn brains to jelly. We never actually figured out how to do it.”

“Can we get back on track, Schafer?”

“How do I know any of this is true? These are some pretty wild claims.”

“I know. When you see her—well, seeing is believing. She’s got an impressive skill set. Don’t want that skill set in the wrong hands.”

“Like yours?”

Natasha let the silence linger for a moment. “Yeah, like mine.”

“Natasha?”

“Look, I want to work for the good guys. Maybe… maybe this is how I start. Maybe getting this girl out of here before they can break her and use her like a tool is how I start getting straight.”

It was Schafer’s turn to let the silence hold. She could practically hear him pinching the rim of his nose.

“We’ve got a few covers for emergencies like this, for our people to get out of hot places. They’re not as secure as your cover. Less details. Less of a paperwork trail, which is suspicious. But it shouldn’t be that hard to get a second ticket out of Ukraine.”

“Good.”

“But I wanna meet her. We’re doing this in person. Your pick-up for your passports and papers are at the drop-off point already, but to get hers, I’ll have to deliver it myself. There’s a little church outside of Pryluky. I know the padre there, he gives me sanctuary now and again. Never asked a lot of questions. Get your papers, take the train, buy your girl another train ticket with the cash. I’ll have everything prepared.”

“You’re going to be glad you did this.”

“Yeah, that just fills me with the greatest of confidence. Don’t fuck this up for me, Natasha.”

“I’m starting to think you don’t trust me.”

“You’re a fucking double-agent, Natasha. If I trusted you, I wouldn’t be doing my job.”

“Always good to talk to you, Schafer.”

The line went dead.

#

The girl didn’t know why she was being led out of her cell, and Natasha was grateful about the lack of questions. That didn’t stop it from being uncomfortable. The girl’s silence was a gas filling the room, invisible but toxic. Natasha could imagine some of what was going through her head. The thoughts of violence and vengeance. Natasha had thoughts just like them—except she couldn’t make a man bleed out of his ears without touching him.

The girl twitched when Natasha grabbed her by the arm to lead her.

“It’s okay,” Natasha said.

The girl glared at her, as if that were the stupidest thing anyone had ever said to her.

Natasha shrugged apologetically, her lip twitching up into the attempt of a smile.

“Let’s get on with it, Widow,” came the familiar gruff voice behind her.

Natasha had to work to keep the sneer off her face. The girl seemed to notice and her brow went up. She was paying attention. Natasha wondered if that was good or not. She settled on good, if she wanted hope for any of this to work.

She shoved her nerves down into a deep place where it wouldn’t bother her anymore. She had to be a stone. If the girl gave anything away they’d both be done for, though the kid seemed smart.

#                                                                                                                                          

The entire drive was had in silence. The transfer was going smoothly and Natasha was counting the minutes. Her internal clock pressed ever closer to the point of alarm.

She felt the eyes of the soldier on top of her. She became a wall. He could stare at her all he liked.

Closer and closer.

No one had caught on yet.

She calculated the time with the various speed of the vehicles.

Just a few more minutes.

She wanted to look at the girl. There was an inexorable pull to check on her, but it would give everything away. Natasha found she was developing something dangerous. She cared about her well-being, this girl who she’d never spoken to. An image of the man she had drained of thought and knowledge, blubbering on the ground, returned to her. It occurred to her that she should fear her.  The absence made her lift a brow.

“Hmm,” Natasha said.

The soldier turned his face to her. She calculated the time and speed in her head again.

She winked at him.

His entire body jerked. He was quick on his feet, she could give him that. But not quick enough.

She started with the soldier beside her and kicked the one across her that was drawing her weapon. The girl turned away and covered her head as Natasha disarmed and dispatched another two by holding on to the hand-holds and putting all her weight into the kick. The head injuries weren’t fatal, but they’d be out of commission for a while.

It was just her and the soldier.

He got hands around her neck and started to squeeze. He hadn’t even pulled his gun. With a shiver of terror, she knew what she was dealing with. Her brows pulled together in anger. She wasn’t going to let this man kill her, not like this. Not like he’d been dreaming of.

She wrapped her thighs around him and grabbed the handhold overhead. Natasha knew just how to throw him. He landed hard, with a thump. He reeled but he was still awake, clawing at her, trying to get his hands in her hair for leverage.

She punched down, once, and he was clocked out, going limp, dropping his hands from her hair and throat.

The van lurched to a halt. The girl, still crouched down and curled into herself, cautiously peeked around her. The carnage caused her eyes to bug and she turned to Natasha, her rapid blinks enough of a question.

Natasha put her finger to her lips as she heard two pairs of boots making their way around the outside of the van. She moved in front of the doors, grabbing the handholds and pressing her body back.

The doors flew open and guns were already pointed at her. She kicked one soldier into the one beside him, the two men careening into each other. Before they could scramble up, she leaped down and kicked the both in the head until they were limp as fish.

One of them was the driver, the other the security officer. She dug into the latter’s pocket, found something smooth and small, and palmed it, tucking it into her pants pocket.

Natasha took the time to catch her breath. As hot air pumped in and out of her lungs, she surveyed the empty road. They were miles from her rendez-vous point with Schafer, but a sense of danger lifted, if only for a moment.

She wondered if this was what freedom felt like.

Draw one breath in. Let one breath out. Close the eyes and let the sun warm the face.

She turned and saw the girl still sitting on the bench in the van, staring at Natasha in awe. Whether she was too scared or too stunned to move, it wasn’t clear. Maybe it had been both.

Natasha held out her hand.

“Come with me if you want to live,” she said.

Her smile was lopsided, her eyes bright, yet the girl only furrowed her brow in something between confusion or outrage.

“It’s from a movie, it—,” Natasha tried. “Nevermind. Come on. We gotta get out of here. They definitely called the disturbance in before stopping the van. We’ve gotta get across that field before they arrive.”

The girl paused for a moment, eying Natasha. Then she grabbed a hold of the hand rail above her and walked out of the van. She approached Natasha with caution, eyes flicking up and down.

“You got a name, kid?” Natasha asked.

“Wanda,” she said curtly. “And I’m not a kid.”

“Fair enough. Follow me.”


	4. Chapter 4

They walked through the tall grass of the field. The sun was setting, making the grass blaze with fiery yellow. The dirt and grass hissed against their clothes and they were silent.

The farm’s barn was collapsing, its roof full of holes and the structure leaning slightly to the side, but not enough to fall. The house was quiet, no lights on, and there were no power or phone lines leading to it. They had been cut long ago, or had never been installed.

The barn doors slid open on rusty hinges. Even though she’d arranged for it ages ago, it was still a relief to see the dust cover over the shape of a car. She grabbed the tarp and pulled.

“We’re going on the run in _that_?” Wanda said.

The Alfa Romeo was fire-engine red—an older model by a few years but still modern and sharp. Natasha had to admit the sight of it gave her a little tingle.

“You don’t like sports cars?” Natasha asked.

“It’s a little conspicuous,” Wanda said.

“That’s the idea. The last thing they’ll expect is a flashy red car. They’re going to think we’re just civilians with too much money. But I mean, if you’d _rather_ be ran off the road by something we can’t outrun them in, by all means, we’ll find a Skoda.”

“I think I prefer this.”

“Hop in.”

#

The engine rumbled under Natasha’s feet and she couldn’t help the satisfied smile on her face.

“Is that them?” Wanda gasped.

“Yup,” Natasha confirmed.

The black cars were speeding down the road toward the transfer van.

“Slow down,” Wanda whispered.

“That’ll tip them off,” Natasha said.

“They’ll see us.”

“The windows are tinted.”

“They’re going to know—”

Natasha shifted gears and the engine revved. The road was narrow and the Alfa was wide.

Wanda slumped down into her seat.

They were nearly close enough to clip the black cars speeding down the road. A few of the bigger SUVs even dodged to the side.

But after they darted past, the cars did not turn around.

Wanda turned and looked out the rear window before turning to look at Natasha. Then she began to laugh, loud, nervous bursts of pure joy.

Natasha couldn’t help the pinched smile on her face.

#

The store was one of those popular and cheap franchises, selling clothes without a real sense of demographic, just trend and style. It was massive enough—two stories tall—to have something for either of them. Natasha let Wanda loose.

“Just make sure the shoes are comfortable,” Natasha said.

As Wanda wandered the among the racks, Natasha began to peruse. She realized that she’d moved in and out of outfits and personas so often that here, among all these options, was an overwhelming amount of choice and no guiding her hand.

What did she want to look like?

She focused: don’t be whimsical. Find something you can move in.

Jeans, a tank top, a shirt to put loosely around that tank. It might get cold. A jacket.

She spotted it—some might call it a statement piece. The jacket was tanned, faux-leather but nicely constructed. She threw it on and looked in the mirror. She flexed her arms and twisted at the waist. She’d be able to move in it.

And she liked it.

“Okay, I’m ready,” came a voice behind her.

Wanda was wearing a red coat and a black shirt, with tall socks coming up to her thighs, black boots, and a short, black skirt showing a sliver of her skin between the skirt and socks.

Natasha started, but it didn’t show.

“You look good,” Natasha said, them hemming as if there was a tickle in her throat. “You need a scarf, though. To hide that.”

“What I need is to get it off,” Wanda bit the air as she tugged on her collar.

“The CIA will get it off. Until then, this is what we gotta do.”

Wanda seemed to pout, but it was tempered by real anger. The girl didn’t know yet that Natasha had palmed the key to it and it was currently residing in the small pocket in her pants. The very small pocket.

Wanda found a red and black patterned infinity scarf and wrapped it around her neck. She held the fabric close to her for just a moment. Natasha could feel the waves of sadness coming over her, and thought that maybe, just maybe, it was time to take it off.

Then the logical part of her mind took over.

Not yet.

As if taking back what was owed to her, Wanda grabbed a handful of rings from the accessory rack and followed Natasha out of the store.

#

Natasha let Wanda sleep on the ride to Pryluky. Her head was propped up on her jacket and she was dead to the world. Natasha breathed out, the tension leaving her body but for the sliver she needed for alertness. She could go without sleep for a while, but this girl had been through so much, Natasha was worried she wouldn’t be able to get a wink. Instead, Wanda was at peace in some way. It was catching.

#

The sun rose over the countryside. Wanda stirred. She looked around her and took a while to acclimatize to her surroundings.

“Are we almost there?” Wanda asked.

“Just about,” Natasha said.

“And then what happens?”

“And then we meet Schafer. He’s my contact at the CIA. They’re going to get you out of the country, to America. I—I’m sorry, I don’t know what happens next. But it’s better than the people I worked for.”

Wanda screwed up her face. “Why does the CIA want me?”

“They don’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It was my idea.”

Wanda squinted at Natasha, her mouth parting with an unspoken question. Natasha squirmed. After so long with subterfuge she figured the truth would be a nice change of pace.

“I was about to get out,” Natasha said. “Taking you from HYDRA was my last job. And then I just couldn’t…”

The silence laid heavy in the car.

“Anyway,” Natasha continued. “I used my pull with Schafer. I’ve got my papers to get to Berlin, and then to America, but we had to improvise for you. He’s going to have passports, identification, a disguise. You’ll be safe.”

“What do you mean, you ‘couldn’t…?” Wanda pushed.

Natasha considered her words carefully.

“I was in the team that brought you in,” Natasha said. “I knew about you, I saw you. I saw how scared you were. I felt…responsible. Once you know something, you have a choice. You either act on that information, or ignore it. It was a no-brainer, really.”

Wanda’s grin was smarmy and sly. “And my powers had nothing to do with it, I’m sure.”

Natasha laughed. “No, that had plenty to do with it. It shouldn’t be in their hands.”

“So it should be in the CIA’s?”

“It should be in yours.”

They shared a moment of eye contact, as much as Natasha could give without taking her eyes off the road for too long. It was enough sincerity that Wanda had to look away, bashful.

“You’ve been very kind to me,” Wanda said.

“Well, I am getting out of the country,” Natasha said.

“No, I mean—letting me wear what I want, talking to me like—”

Wanda struggled, but Natasha didn’t feel the need to interject with a guess. Eventually Wanda found her way to her truth. “It’s been a little while since anyone really talked to me like a person.”

A needle went into Natasha’s heart. It stung like an acid injection. She hated that they could relate on that level. It wasn’t fair. But then again, what was?

“You’re not such a bad conversationalist,” Natasha said. “For a broody teenager.”

“I’m not a teenager,” Wanda said with a bite.

“I think I got the broody thing right. It’s cool. It’s fun. It’s a little goth.”

Natasha raised her brow at Wanda, who merely glared back. What malice was there was tempered. Natasha wasn’t worried about making an enemy, for once in a really long time.

Her eyes flicked to the scarf, which was loosened around the neck. The collar still fixed around her neck. Her eyes back on the road, Natasha’s body tightened. The presence of the object in her pocket seemed to grow sharper and poke against her hip, like it was angry with her.

“I just can’t wait for the CIA to figure out how to take this thing off,” Wanda said, tugging at it.

“Just keep it covered up,” Natasha said. “It’ll be soon enough.”

Natasha adjusted into her seat, as if she could disappear into it.

#

The church was old enough to be sagging, but not beyond repair. The lawn at least was maintained, the signs cleaned and new. It was in use, but that day it seemed abandoned. Natasha looked up and down the streets, seeing kids playing outside in the road, a few of the older ones staring down at the Alfa Romeo and discussing it like it was a hot girl. Natasha patted the hood of the car, almost thanking it, and wishing instead of the circuitous road they were about to take to Berlin, they could take a nice, straightforward road trip. Especially in the Alfa.

Wanda adjusted her scarf so that it was tighter around her collar, covering it perfectly. He glanced at the strangers in the street between the curtain of her hair before ducking her head down. She followed Natasha up the stairs into the church.

Schafer wasn’t there. The pews were empty. There was no sign of the priest.

Natasha’s belly went cold.

“Stay here,” Natasha said.

Wanda quietly stepped aside to where Natasha pointed, inside the church, next to the door. She hugged her arms to herself and scanned the room, paranoia started to seep into her eyes.

The gun in the back holster had been covered by the jacket, and the feel of it as she prepared to draw it gave little comfort.

She stopped in the middle of the aisle. Every hair on the back of her neck stood up.

“We’re leaving,” Natasha said.

She turned and marched back to Wanda, taking the surprised girl by the arm and steering her back down the steps.

“What happened to Schafer?” Wanda asked.

“Schafer’s dead,” Natasha said.

Wanda’s eyes went wide and she rushed to the passenger’s side of the car.

“What do you mean he’s dead?” Wanda demanded.

“Get in the car,” Natasha barked.

They got into the car and Natasha peeled out of the church lot, into the street, and headed back the way they came. The freeway wasn’t far.

Schafer would have been there already. He was always early and he always stood out in the open. If she didn’t see him where he was meant to be…

There was a crack in the air outside and the sound of shattering before Wanda screamed.

She slammed on the brakes.

The windshield was dented, but not penetrated. The crack across the windshield obscured her view. She had no time to look for the shooters. She slammed the gear into reverse and spun the Alfa around. Wanda grabbed the handle of the door as Natasha maneuvered.

“Where are we going to go?” Wanda cried out.

“Uh,” Natasha said. “Somewhere else? Hold on.”

“ _I am_.”

Natasha gunned the ignition and peeled out of the village. A pair of black cars appeared in her rear-view mirror, gaining on her.

Wanda sunk further down into her seat, but craned her torso to look behind them.

“If I didn’t have this thing on,” Wanda said. “They’d be sorry they ever tried to cage me.”

The little object in Natasha’s pocket dug into her skin, the proverbial princess and the pea but there was only cloth between her and her guilt. She cranked the wheel, downshifting as the Afla rounded the corner—

She slammed on the breaks.

The road was blocked by another large vehicle parked across the width of the road. Natasha craned the nose of the Alfa so that the barrage of gunfire that came next broadsided the driver’s side door. Natasha’s heart dropped. The man who stood in front of the car, his gun held across his chest, was the nameless soldier, the one who had it out for her. Natasha grunted hard in her throat. She was tired of his face, the way he sneered at her even now.

Natasha scanned the street, made a quick adjustment.

“That alleyway, there!” Natasha yelled. “I’ll cover you!”

Natasha opened the console between the seats and pulled out two pistols. As Wanda made her escape Natasha covered her, shielding herself with the door and firing around the corner. Once Wanda was out of sight, Natasha crawled back over the seats and out the passenger side, running into the alley where Wanda was waiting.

“What now?” Wanda asked.

“Well—,” Natasha began, about to admit she had no idea.

A crack erupted in the air and Natasha ducked and grabbed Wanda’s arm. The two of them crouched close to each other, leaning on a fence, peering through the long alleyway.

It was a sound Natasha hadn’t heard for a long time. It was an old sound, from a different time. No one used that kind of rifling anymore. The crack echoed through the sky again, and then silence reverberated.

Natasha risked getting closer to the mouth of the alley, though Wanda tried to pull her back. Two bodies laid on the ground, and from what Natasha could tell, they were both one-shot kills. The asshole who had it out for her was laying on a heap on the gravel road.

“We’ve got to go,” Wanda said, pulling Natasha back.

The hollow crack went through the air again. At the sound of wood exploding, Natasha ducked.

If Wanda hadn’t tugged her back, the hole bored through the fence would have gone through her head.

She grabbed Wanda’s hand and whirled about. They got a better hiding spot, one away from the angle of the sniper.

“What was that?” Wanda asked.

“A third party,” Natasha said. “Someone else is after you.”

Wanda’s face screwed up, her anger boiling to the surface. “It’s Hydra. I know it. They wouldn’t let your people take me so easily.”

“Great. So we’ve got my people and Hydra trying to recapture you. That complicates things. But why send just one sniper? They must have known they were coming up against a whole team and…oh…”

“Oh?”

“Oh no.”

“Oh no what?”

_Not him_.

“We’ve got to move,” Natasha said.

Natasha’s eyes skimmed the soldier on the ground, the way he stared off into the sky. It was the last time she would ever see him, and the only acknowledgment she would ever give him.

“The SUV,” Natasha said. “It’s our only chance.”

Running back into the alley was a risk, but it was one she had to take. She pulled out her two pistols and did a calculation. She fired at the rooftops without taking the time to look. Wanda ran and got into the SUV through the driver’s side.

The figure on the rooftop ducked to avoid Natasha’s gunfire and it was all the time Natasha needed to slide into the vehicle and slam the door shut.

There was a crack and a thud.

The bullet would have gone right through her skull, if the windshield had been even a little bit thinner..

A stray thought came into Natasha’s head.

“Did you buckle your seatbelt?” Natasha asked.

“My _seatbelt_?” Wanda snapped.

Natasha grabbed her own seatbelt and put it in place one-handed. “Safety first.”

Wanda scrambled and put on hers as well.

Natasha slammed the gear into drive and began to move. The figure on the rooftops was pursuing them and Wanda, hopping across the village rooftops with the kind of speed that unnerved Natasha. But then she remembered—

There had been an old building, abandoned and under construction, covered in scaffolding. She’d have to remember to make a donation to the town’s historical society, if she made it through this.

The figure in black jumped onto the scaffolding and Natasha slammed on the breaks, making a hard turn.

It was almost embarrassing, the spill the sniper took as Natasha hit the scaffolding, and sending him flying into a pile of mud and dirt.

Before he could scramble up, they were already speeding out of the town and toward the freeway.

Natasha’s heart rabbited in her chest. Wanda let a burst of laughter out, shuddering and gasping as she put her hand on her chest.

They drove down the nearly empty freeway, and Natasha turned on the headlights, which illuminating the darkening roads. Silence gathered and Natasha let the dark and the silence sooth her shaking nerves.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Wanda said, breaking the silence.

Natasha felt herself smile, but sadness brought it down. “Don’t be,” Natasha said.

“It’s my fault.”

“It’s the job. No matter what side we’re working for. It’s what people like us sign up for.”

Silence.

“You know who was shooting at us,” Wanda said.

“Yeah,” Natasha said. “Had a run in with him before. If Hydra sent him after us, they mean business. He won’t stop. Not until his mission is done. I barely believe that he eats or sleeps. We’ve gotta get overseas. Fast. We can’t do that until we get to the extraction point in Berlin. Until then? We’ve got to be as invisible as he is.”

“Your invisible sniper have a name?”

“I wasn’t talking about the sniper.”


	5. Chapter 5

The handler removed his cuff-links with delicacy and placed them in the saucer that he had set aside to neatly store them. With care, he folded the sleeves of his shirt up to the elbows, smoothing down the fabric so it laid as flat as possible before his elbows. He removed the waterproof apron from the table and methodically wrapped it around himself, tying it in the front. He pulled black latex gloves from a box and pulled them on. He wiggled his fingers in order to make them fit the form of his hands better.

He grabbed the spray nozzle of the hose.

Moving around to the other side of the table, he walked across the concrete floor and bent over to pick the end of the hose up off the ground.

The Asset stood at attention, his hair falling into his face as he leveled his eyes at Stalker.

Tipping his head to the side, Stalker considered the soldier. There was fear in his eyes—uncertainty. After all, it was only their second meeting. They didn’t know each other yet. Stalker remained unhappy with how much emotion he found there, in the soldier’s perplexed face. It would make him inefficient. He filed away the task of helping the soldier with that.

“Take off your clothes,” Stalker said.

There wasn’t a pause between the command and the action, Stalker noted with approval. He began to twist the large spray nozzle onto the thick hose. The soldier undressed efficiently, even folding his clothes in military style, setting them down on a chair that Stalker had provided for them.

“You know, you don’t have to be afraid of me,” Stalker said.

The soldier’s eyes twitched around the edges. More of that lack of control, he noted, something to improve upon. But still, better than other assets he had handled in the past. There was no wildness to him. They had done a good job.

Still, there is always room for improvement.

The soldier stood nude in front of him. Even without his dirty clothes, he was muddy. Dirt covered his skin in patches from the fall. Once done with the task of undressing, he again took his passive stance, awaiting more orders.

“I’m sure you’ve had other handlers before,” Stalker said. “I hope our relationship can be unique. I want you to know that what we do is for the best. You’re doing good work here. I don’t see any reason why there should be tension between us. You’re in my hands now. Don’t worry.”

Stalker twisted the nozzle and the full brunt of the water pressure hit the soldier, who shrank under the force of the hose.

#

“What do we do now?” Wanda asked.

They were huddled in the corner of a commercial cafe, faux-leather armchairs pushed closer to each other. Wanda stirred her tea with a wooden straw while Natasha knocked back her black coffee. The din of the space was perfect for muffling their conversation. She wasn’t worried about listening devices here. Too populated, too noisy, too commercial.

“I have my passports, and some money,” Natasha said. “Whatever happened to the ones Schafer was supposed to supply, they’re nowhere we can get to them. I have a little money, so we’ll see if it’s enough to get us both to Berlin—”

“I’m not going to Berlin,” Wanda said.

The finality in that voice made Natasha still and recoil.

“I won’t be able to get in touch with the CIA until Berlin. With Schafer gone, my line is burned.”

“I’m not going,” Wanda repeated. “Find a way to get this collar off of me, and then we can say goodbye to each other. I won’t be your problem.”

Natasha again was aware of the pellet in her pocket. Wanda’s voice was stubborn, her face defiant. It could be the end of their short alliance. Just give the girl her freedom, walk away, take her own money and passports and show up in Berlin, ready to put Wanda Maximoff and her freaky psychic powers behind her.

Natasha stared at the floor, but the answer wasn’t there.

They could part ways. Natasha had entertained that ever since the ties to the CIA with Schafer were cut. Getting the girl all the way to Berlin for another rendezvous was a risk she wasn’t sure she wanted to take. Then there was the matter of trusting the CIA with a psychic, which she didn’t necessarily think was wise. She had taken Wanda out of KGB hands—hadn’t that been all she wanted? The girl was powerful, and surely could fend for herself.

Something in Natasha’s gut told her there was something she wasn’t counting on. There always was.

“What are you going to do?” Natasha asked, and found her interest was genuine. She wanted to know what Wanda would do with freedom. It occurred to Natasha that, if she wasn’t fishing, that maybe she was looking for ideas.

Wanda’s eyes were haunted. Natasha knew that look. It was someone looking inward, mining for something. Maybe knowledge, maybe hope. She’d have to wait.

“We didn’t know what they were,” Wanda said. “Not really.”

“Hydra?” Natasha asked, taking a note that she’d said ‘we’ but waiting for the time to ask.

“They said they would help us. Then they locked us up. Did things to us. Changed us.”

There it was again. The plural. Natasha leaned into Wanda, waiting for something new to drop.

“Now that I’m free,” Wanda continued. “Now that I have this…power, they won’t be able to stop me.”

“From doing what?” Natasha asked, genuinely electrified.

“I’m going to find out where they took my brother. I’m going to find him and I’m going to make them regret that they ever split us apart.”

A brother. So it was love. That was dangerous. There was no telling what a woman with psychic powers would do for love.

“You have a brother?” Natasha asked.

“We’ve never been apart,” Wanda said, a wound in her voice. “Not even in the womb.”

Dread sat like a stone in Natasha’s body. A twin. That was worse than just a brother. There was no controlling Wanda, not when these were the stakes.

“Is he like you?” Natasha asked.

“Different,” Wanda said. “The experiments brought something else out in him.”

“What?”

“They called it ‘increased metabolism and improved thermal homeostasis.’”

“Oh.”

“He’s fast.”

“ _Oh_. That’s handy.”

“More than you might think. Which is why they’ll be putting him on ice, or worse. I have to find him.”

“Okay. You got a plan?”

“I’m going to flay them alive, mostly.”

“No, I mean a real plan. Finding him, infiltration, extraction plans?”

Wanda blinked, as if waking up from a drowsy spell. Her brow ticked and she studied the floor as if reading it.

“It’s okay,” Natasha said. “I like the spirit. The flaying’s a nice touch. But you won’t be able to do much on your own.”

“I can do just fine on my own,” Wanda said, biting the air.

No part of Natasha believed that was true. Wanda had the conviction, sure, but she would still be alone.

She didn’t want Wanda to be alone.

The ache in her heart surprised her. The thought of abandoning this person she’d known for mere days gave her the kind of grief she thought had been trained out of her. She held on to it like a dear thing. It was a feeling, a _real_ feeling, unfettered by calculations and plots. It just was.

And there was the fact that there was one more Maximoff out there, in enemy hands.

Getting back to pragmatics felt good. Or, if not good, then familiar. Comfortable. An ancient Nazi organization in control of an enhanced individual could put a lot of people at risk. She couldn’t go to Berlin with that on her conscience any more than she could have left Wanda with the KGB.

And yet she couldn’t stop her heart from burning.

“Maybe you will be fine,” Natasha said. “That might really be true. It’s not like I don’t think you could take them on. Might be fun, actually. But do you really want to do this alone?”

Wanda’s face was stubborn, but it was losing its edge. Sadness crept into the corners of her eyes and she trembled so slightly Natasha was sure she would have missed it if she wasn’t…who she was.

Her heart was aching for this girl, and Natasha didn’t know whether to hold the feeling close, or suffocate it. Suffocating was smart. It would keep her safe, protected.

But that had been the old ways of doing things, and she knew the results. Opening her heart came with risks, that was for sure. She didn’t know what it would do, letting these emotions dictate her behavior.

But they had to, or this was all for nothing.

“Come on,” Natasha said. “We’ll get to Berlin, we’ll figure this out. The CIA will know what they’re doing.”

“No,” Wanda said.

The finality broke Natasha’s heart.

Natasha also realized something.

“Come on,” Natasha said. “Let’s go for a walk. It’s cold, bring your coffee.”

#

The bridge over the water was familiar. Schafer had once leaned over the bridge’s edge, overlooking the Dnieper river, in the few times they had met in person. Natasha would miss him. Genuinely. She had only ever been a pain in his ass, and now he was dead. She hadn’t even needed to see a body to know that her people—what had been her people—had found him.

Wanda looked out into the dark water. Her eyes darkened and became soft as she stared. Her hair blew around her face. Natasha watched the soft length of it caress her skin and thought she looked romantic in the wind, like it was always supposed to animate her.

Natasha sighed, her eyes closing. Her hand went to the pocket of her jeans, into the little pocket on her right side. She pulled out what was inside and palmed it.

“I want you to trust me,” Natasha said.

Wanda narrowed her eyes. “You’re a spy,” she said. “You were one of them. I don’t know how I can trust you.”

“I know. I think we can start with this.”

Natasha held out her palm and opened it. The key sat inside the valley of her hand. Wanda’s eyes widened before they narrowed at her.

“This whole time,” Wanda said. “You had it this _whole time_!?”

“Yeah?” Natasha said.

“I can’t believe you. And you’re asking me to trust you now? After this?”

“Yeah?” Natasha’s voice was shaky. Something about Wanda’s demeanor had Natasha second-guessing herself.

“You… _you_ —,” Wanda sputtered.

“Look…I’m not proud of this. It was just…it was the only way I knew how to keep you safe.”

Wanda’s eyes flashed with surprise. When she didn’t speak, Natasha went on.

“I only ever knew how to get things done by holding all the cards,” Natasha said. “That’s gotta change. I need…I need to start learning to trust people. You wanna help me out with that? I take the collar off, you don’t flay me, and we go get that brother of yours. Can we make a deal?”

Wanda stared down at the key in Natasha’s proffered hand. There was a sadness in her eyes, but hope, also.

“You take this thing off me,” Wanda said. “I won’t use my powers on you. It’s a promise. So long as we’re on the same mission.”

Wanda unwrapped the infinity scarf from around her neck to reveal the ugly, heavy thing that was weighing down her posture.

Natasha reached up and inserted the key, twisted it, and there was a metal click. The red button darkened and there was an electrical whir. She pulled it off slowly, as if worried that Wanda was going to explode in a burst of potential energy.

Instead, Wanda’s back straightened and she turned her face toward the sky. Natasha savored the look on Wanda’s face, as if she were sunning herself on a warm beach instead of under overcast skies.

Natasha offered Wanda the collar. She took it, rotating it in her hands. She eyed it curiously as she did.

She chucked the collar into the river. Natasha leaned over and watched it tumble in the air and hit the waters of the Dnieper with a splash.

Good riddance, was all Natasha could think. But she had other concerns. She swallowed, trying to suppress it, but her throat constricted nonetheless.

Wanda was kind of…glowing. Just a bit. Just enough that Natasha could see an aura of red swirling around the girl. There was red in her eyes, and Natasha thought of the replicants in Blade Runner with their red pupils, before she forced herself to stop thinking in pop culture references.

“Better?” Natasha asked, a tick of a smile pulling her lip up for half a second.

Wanda let the infinity scarf go over the railing of the bridge and it blew away on the wind.

“Better,” Wanda said.


	6. Chapter 6

They weren’t really on a road, at least not one that would be on any map. They’d stolen the ancient Range Rover near the border, hot-wiring it and leaving a note of apology. There was no way to get through without a passport, so Natasha decided to make a lateral decision.

They drove through the nearly-impassible hillside in the off-road vehicle, over rocky hills and little streams, through forests and old, abandoned towns. Somehow, they had made it to the edge of one of the border cities.

Driving through the city invited silence. All Natasha wanted to do was observe.

There were layers of time on Sokovia’s landscape: before, during, and after. The bombs had to miss something, showing what the landscape may have looked like in the place where the munitions seemed to miss. The smell of ash and metal was still in the air. It hadn’t been so long ago, after all. Amongst the ashy buildings were sudden bright colors—graffiti and murals that signaled that there might be life in the wasteland. As it was, the place, which before the war would have been bustling with the energy of any modern, small city, was nothing but crags of stone walls and broken glass.

Natasha took her eyes off the road just long enough to see Wanda staring out of the window at the landscape. There was something in her silence that Natasha didn’t want to break.

“When did they get you?” Natasha asked.

From the sharp turn of her head, the question had caught Wanda off-guard. It made her fume and she looked out the window again, her eyes narrowed.

Natasha waited. She wouldn’t stop looking at Wanda, awaiting eye contact. As Natasha predicted, Wanda’s gaze softened.

Everybody had a story to tell.

Everybody wanted to tell that story.

Wanda would be no exception.

“We wanted to be strong,” Wanda said.

There was a long silence. Natasha knew who she meant—’we’ was her and her brother. She imagined this happened to them together, and with most things. They were twins, after all.

Wanda sighed, sat up, got more comfortable in her seat. “You know, if we knew it was Hydra, we wouldn’t have volunteered. By the time we knew they were Nazis it was too late. They’d already changed us, and knew how to contain us. I’m not sorry for my reasons. I am sorry I was so naive.”

“So you haven’t always been this way,” Natasha said.

“If I was, I’d be better at this.”

Wanda held up her hand, moving her fingers in the air. A ball of energy, red and intense, bobbed up and down in the air as Wanda lifted and lowered her hand. It wasn’t so scary when she saw it like this. It was almost whimsical, Natasha thought.

“How well can you control it?” Natasha said.

“I’m learning,” Wanda said.

“I’m learning needle-point, but I’m not very good at it.”

“Be serious.”

“I am. I’m patient and I’m good at stabbing things, but I’m always poking myself.”

Wanda sighed. “I’m pretty good at controlling my powers. There was a time when I didn’t understand them at all. They had to hold me in a cell until these fits passed and I wouldn’t hurt anybody. I would have learned more, but—well, we found out what they were and they had us ‘contained.’ They separated us not long after. That’s when your people came for me.”

Natasha would make no excuses for herself. They had been her people and there was no use in being defensive now. She’s been with them long enough to have a hand in Wanda’s extraction. They were her people, up until the exact moment when they weren’t. Before that hard line, Natasha took full responsibility for what she had done. She wouldn’t be forgiving any of those debts.

“Maybe we can work on that,” Natasha offered. “I mean, I’m not exactly an expert, but there have to be ways. I could help you learn.”

“You think so?” Wanda said with a little laugh.

Natasha gave a pinched smile. She liked the way Wanda laughed, a condescending amusement well past her years. It promised there was more to come from her.

Natasha shrugged. “Or I could just be there, help you figure this all out. Sometimes that helps. Just not being alone.”

Wanda laid her cheek on her palm and stared warmly across at Natasha. They shared a soft silence as the greenery of the trees passed outside the windows and the car hummed underneath them.

Natasha tried not to think too hard about her own place in the war that had ravaged the country. It wasn’t a direct involvement, but there were consequences that came with her work like dominoes falling in the wrong place.

She snuck another quick glance, just to see the halo of light on the curve of her face.

“Not far now,” Natasha said. “Are you ready for this?”

“Who’s ever ready to come home?” Wanda asked.

Natasha eyed the scenery up ahead. There was a bombed-out factory office rising in the landscape. She was certain that had to be Hydra’s secret base. A little thrill went through her. She loved finding secret bases.

She parked the SUV at the other side of the derelict building, leaving it sitting in a cranny that more or less hid the gray Range Rover from view. She left the keys in the ignition and the door unlocked. On the off chance that it got stolen, that just meant there were fewer tracks for Natasha to have to cover.

“Now what?” Wanda said.

“I don’t know,” Natasha said. “You’re the one who’s been here before.”

“Yes, but I never escaped. There was nowhere to go. I was on an upper floor and it was locked down. I could see everything around me, the whole landscape. That’s how I knew where I was. My family used to take trips to the countryside and we always passed through here. I recognized the buildings.”

“Which buildings?”

“Well, they’re gone now. But the radio tower managed to survive. It used to be redder. They must not paint it anymore.”

Natasha imagined not. Infrastructure was only just starting to come back together after the final round of shelling before the peace treaty was ratified. A peace treaty that was leading to unemployment, militarization, and civil unrest, but it had been something to stop the outright war. There were players working to upend it, but so far, mercifully, it hadn’t taken. Still, nobody had come back to claim the border city, where the shelling and fighting had been intense. It was a scar on the landscape that no one wanted to patch up.

They entered the building lobby. The ceiling was sagging, the pillars were cracked, and the tiles on the wall and floor were cracked. The bombs hadn’t knocked down the building, but it had shaken it enough that it had cracked nearly to the rebar. As they walked through the lobby, dust and ashes fell in little streams.

“You know, I think the elevator might be out of commission,” Natasha said.

“You think?” Wanda asked.

“We could maybe take the stairs, but there’s no telling what the structural integrity is.”

“Natasha.”

The condescension in her voice and the raise of her brow made Natasha reel back.

“What?” Natasha asked.

“I can move things with my mind,” Wanda said.

“I don’t see how—”

Realization hit her like a baseball bat to the abdomen.

“Oh boy,” Natasha said.

Wanda pried the door open with her mind, pushing at the air as if it were a physical act. The shaft of the elevator was empty. Natasha leaned over and saw that the car had fallen to the bottom of the shaft long ago.

Wand stared her right in the eye.

“No,” Natasha said. “No, no.”

#

“Stop fidgeting,” Wanda said.

“I can’t help it,” Natasha said.

Wanda held Natasha around her slight waist, their hips butted up against each other. Natasha looked up at the floors above, rising up into the sky in slimming perspective.

“Okay,” Natasha said. “Just lemme get _READY_ —”

The ground dropped beneath her feet, the bottom of the shaft fading into just a pinpoint, losing its definition. Natasha wasn’t screaming, not exactly, but the sound that came out of her mouth was unexpected enough to be embarrassing. There was a drop in her stomach as they reached the height of the building’s seventh floor and before she knew it, her toes touched ground. Wanda didn’t let go of her, merely loosened her grip to let Natasha sway and find her feet.

“You alright?” Wanda asked.

Natasha realized she was laughing. Not just laughing, doubling over and nearly collapsing. She couldn’t remember the last time her adrenaline spiked that high. Wanda stared at her, amusement sparking in her eyes.

“That was fun!” Natasha said. “But let’s not do that again for a while.”

They marched down a hall and found a door. It was big and silver. Natasha gave it a tug. It was locked. Sealed shut, more like.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got—,” Natasha said, reaching for lockpicks.

“Stand back,” Wanda said.

Natasha took a step back and at once the door took on a red halo. The sound of metal bending reverberated through the air and the door was ripped off its hinges, scattering across the linoleum floor.

Natasha stared at it. Her brow rose. She tilted her head to the side.

“That works,” Natasha said.

“Let’s go,” Wanda said, the determination in her voice steely.

“Hey, Wanda?”

“What?”

“Let’s do spy stuff after this.”

Wanda seemed to mull it over first, and for one stomach-dropping moment, Natasha thought she was going to say no.

“Okay,” Wanda said and Natasha let out a sigh of relief.

#

The computers that they had abandoned were in bad shape. They were gutted, hard drives removed, monitors smashed, server towers reduced to bare shelves behind glass doors. There were dew stains on the glass from the coolers being left on with no more servers to cool.

“There has to be something here,” Wanda insisted.

“Hydra’s pretty thorough,” Natasha said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t get lucky. You know, if we’re lucky. Not sure how much of that we’ve got, but the universe has gotta give us a break.”

“Are you sure?”

“Nope. Oh, hey.”

Natasha picked up a toy from a desk and squeezed it. It made a high-pitched noise and a tongue stuck out. Natasha laughed, pointing to it, but when she saw that Wanda was less than amused her face fell and she let the toy roll back onto the desk.

With a more serious eye, she scanned the room. They had taken the servers, the backups, the backups of the backups—but there were always ghosts. Pieces of information lingering in some overlooked corner.

Hydra had to have dumped everything somewhere.

Sure, the floor they were on was all garbage, but not valuable garbage. That was left to rot. Something like a hard drive or a USB drive would have been taken out of the building to be destroyed. There was only to figure out where.

“If I were a pile of sensitive hard drives, where would I be?” Natasha asked.

“How should I know?”

“Worst case scenario: they took it all with them. Slightly better scenario: they burned everything. Maybe an okay scenario: they buried everything.”

“Where would they bury it?”

“Don’t know. Looking for a fresh data grave would be pointless, the weather would have covered it up. You know this area. Where do Sokovians put things they want to bury?”

Wanda’s face became very dire.

#

The bomb graveyard was the kind of sight that takes a stake and drives it into you until you almost can’t move. For a while, Natasha could do nothing but stare out over the scraps of bombs, burned cars, and twisted metal that stretched into a crater almost as big as an apartment complex. This was Sokovia’s recent history, the graveyard of aggression, standing as a warning that all this could happen again.

“If they buried it,” Wanda said. “They buried it here.”

Natasha nodded. She began her descent into the hole. She stepped lightly, not just out of respect for the solemn air of the place, but out of respect for unexploded munitions.

After a half an hour of searching, Wanda cried out. “This is hopeless.”

“This might take a while,” Natasha cried back.

Though, the truth was, Natasha was beginning to lose hope, too. The scrap metal had been around long enough that it was rusting and very tetanus-y. Nothing looked new, or like it had been moved in a long time.

Then she spied it. She had to narrow her eyes to be sure. The piece of metal might have been disturbed, or rain might have made the dirt sink a little bit, but a sliver of metal was a different color than what was above it. It was just a hint, but something was disturbed.

“Wanda!” Natasha said. “Can you lift this big thingie?”

“Thingie?” Wanda said.

Natasha pointed to it. “This thingie. I don’t know what it is.”

“It used to be a missile.”

“Sure, the missile thingie.”

Wanda rolled her eyes, but there was a mote of amusement in them that sustained Natasha like a snack. She stepped back and Wanda lifted her arms.

The large, broken missile shell rose out of the dirt, black soil cascading out of its hollow middle. She threw it aside like it was a pen that had run out of ink.

Natasha ignored the thrill that shot through her nerves at the sight of it. There were other things to do.

At first there was just another pile of dirt, but then Natasha got on her knees and started to sift. The pile of dirt that had fallen out of the shell sat on the dirt as a pyramid. She put her hand in the soft earth and rummaged around, about to sigh and say there was nothing.

Something with a hard plastic edge hit her hand. Grabbing it, she pulled her hand out.

It was a USB drive.

They’d buried it in the hollow of the shell. And from the flecks of metal poking out of the dirt, a few more things besides.

She looked up at Wanda.

“Grab everything you can and get it back to the car.”

#

The whole situation was jerry-rigged, a usb port in the broken computer serving as the charger hooked up to the car’s cigarette lighter socket. Another wire traveled out of the dirty hard drive, which Natasha wired into the exposed innards of her stolen smart phone.

“Is it working?” Wanda asked.

“Patience is a virtue,” Natasha quipped.

The phone’s screen flickered and died. Then the screen blipped on, some green letters processing data in the top corner.

Typing in the code on a digital keyboard was more laborious than if she had a working keyboard, but it would have to do. The back end of the phone was in a language she knew and if she could coax it to communicate with the broken hard drive—

She began downloading what had to be hundreds of emails. She felt relief and nervousness mingle together. On the one hand, they were salvaging _something_. On the other, it could be nothing. Just intra-office emails, nothing classified which would have been stored on one of the secure servers.

When she disconnected her phone and booted up it’s operating system, she opened the emails and sorted them for the time frame when they would have abandoned the facility.

“Well?” Wanda asked.

Natasha found the memo. It was sent out in a hurry, so not encrypted. They knew they would be destroying the computers anyway. It had coordinates, which Natasha put into her phone.

Her heart dropped.

“Oh no,” Natasha said.

“What?” Wanda said, voice full of worry.

“I know where they took your brother.”

“Where.”

Natasha sighed.

Anywhere but Budapest.


	7. Chapter 7

The train station in Sokovia’s capitol city had miraculously survived several wars. The Soviet-era metal arches lifted a glass ceiling overhead and the shops in the station were quaint and small. A florist’s shop overflowed onto the floor before it like an untamed garden; a Starbucks had managed to open there, four baristas in a cramped space, wordlessly sliding past each other to make drinks; and a little watch kiosk was manned by a bored young girl who looked somewhat like Wanda. It might have been her in another life—an ordinary shop-girl making just enough to share an apartment and to spend time with friends.

Natasha turned and watched Wanda stare off into the distance.

“How long are we going to have to wait?” Wanda asked, weary of voice. “The train will be here soon.”

“They’d better be here soon,” Natasha said. “But I don’t know these guys. I sent them a photo of you, so the passports should be fresh and ready. They don’t look too hard at your papers here and the train mostly goes through countryside. Not a lot of ways to track us.”

“And you know that from experience.”

“Too much of it.”

Natasha turned away. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the way Wanda regarded her, eyes flicking over her from head to toe. Her weariness was tinged with something sad and what Natasha hoped wasn’t pity.

Sound became muffled and the hairs on the back of Natasha’s neck stood on end. She turned around and scanned the row of shops and saw the bustle continue on as if the oppressive atmosphere Natasha felt was nothing more than paranoia.

Then again, Natasha’s paranoia had saved her skin more times than she could count.

“Wanda?” Natasha said.

“You feel like getting a coffee?” Wanda said.

“I like tea.”

“Starbucks has tea.”

“Not good tea.”

Natasha wound her arm around Wanda’s and led her toward the Starbucks anyway. Wanda let herself be carried along. At the counter of the Starbucks, Natasha put on a rather vapid face and pitched her voice high.

“Hi!” Natasha said. “Do you have any cake pops left? You like cake pops, Anna?”

“Er,” Wanda started. “I like the cookie dough. _Natasha what are you doing_?”

That last she whispered.

After getting a java chip frappucino and an unsweetened white iced tea Natasha lead her to the crowded tables.

“We’re being watched,” Natasha said through a smile. “ _No, don_ _’t look behind you_. Act naturally. The cover is that we’re grad students. Stick to it.”

“I don’t know how to act like a grad student.”

“Hungry and tired. And broke. But just be a normal girl right now. I’ll watch out for our tail.”

“Is it…is it that man you talked about? The one who’s like a ghost. The one who shot at us in Pryluky?”

“If it was the Winter Soldier, he would have us both dead to rights by now. This is someone else.”

Wanda sipped her tea through a straw, nonchalant as possible. Natasha could see her fear, but she doubted anyone else could from far away. Her body language became loose and her face giving nothing away. With a little training, she could be good, Natasha thought. Aware of the disgust that thought brought on, she forced it out of her mind.

Natasha took a sip out of her straw, and turned her head, as if to look at the train departure and arrival times.

The black suit the man wore was too impeccable.

Natasha turned away immediately, but she had seen all she needed to. She played the image back in her mind. The black suit was matte, no stray animal hairs or dirt, not even at the hems of his trousers. The white of his shirt was gleaming, like it had just been taken out of the package. His face was handsome but plain—just another mildly attractive man, his height likely adding to any appeal he might have. He wore cuff links and Natasha wondered who even wore those anymore. His shoes were even shined.

He creeped her right out.

Then she saw the drop. It was going to be sloppy. Natasha grabbed the stack of money in her pocket, the one wrapped in plastic. The man walking towards them was furtive, practically putting a target on his back with his body language.

But it would have to do.

He slammed into her with his elbow.

“Hey!” Natasha said. “Watch it!”

She pocketed Wanda’s papers and passport into her jacket as the stranger slipped the money into his bomber jacket and glared at her, but nodding. He was an amateur. She hoped he hadn’t given too much away.

“That was it?” Wanda whispered.

“We’re getting on the train,” Natasha said. “Now.”

“But if they know where we are, won’t they just follow us?”

“We’ll lose them on the train.”

“How? It’s a _train_.”

“Follow my lead.”

“Couldn’t I just—”

“Wanda, let’s not make your superpowers a matter of public record just yet. Then we’ll have more than Hydra and the KGB to worry about.”

The sound of the approaching passenger train echoed in the old train station. The man with the suit picked up a briefcase and checked what was, naturally, a very shiny watch and waited patiently by the yellow line.

Wanda and Natasha walked further down the tracks. The man in the suit was getting onto business class, and Wanda and Natasha had coach tickets. They boarded and searched for their sleeper car, finding it, then settling inside. They had no luggage to speak of and Wanda sat down on the bottom bunk with aplomb.

“They know we’re on this train,” Wanda said.

“You trust me, right?” Natasha asked.

Wanda locked eyes with Natasha. It was an intense stare, but Natasha had to trouble matching it.

“I do,” Wanda said.

Natasha believed her.

#

The train was sparse—not a lot of people were traveling from Sokovia to Romania, even fewer  to Hungary beyond.

Natasha bent over to a young couple that were chatting and who began to open their packed lunches.

“Hi!” Natasha said in perfect Sokovian. “The train is pretty empty and we’re wondering if you’d like to be bumped up to business class.”

The uniform Natasha had ‘borrowed’ was a little loose, but she was going to take that over too tight any day. She needed to be able to move.

The train car was emptied of all three parties of people who had been sitting in it. The only person left in the car sat near the front of the car. He wore a matte black suit and crossed his legs, his hands placed patiently over his knees.

Natasha sat down across from him in the opposite-facing chairs.

“Where’s your dog?” Natasha asked.

Stalker stared blankly ahead. “Kenneled.”

He took a sip of hot coffee and set it down on the tray next to the window.

“Miss Romanoff,” Stalker said. “You know who I am. I don’t want this to be messy, and you came to see _me_. Can I assume this is an attempt at negotiation?”

“Everything’s negotiable,” Natasha said.

“No. No, I don’t believe that’s true. Some forces of nature are constants. They have to be, in order for other, chaotic forces to be reined in. I’m gravity, Miss Romanoff. I’m the thing that makes all the little rocks in space come together and form a ball. The rocks were just scattered before me. Order, Miss Romanoff. I’m the order of the universe. Order can only be reinforced by men like me. I’m ruled by the laws of my organization, not anything selfish you can buy or trade with.”

“Did you practice that in front of a mirror?”

“What do you want?”

“Mostly I want to shoot you in the kneecaps.”

“To the point, please?”

“I wanted to give you a chance. I want you to get off this train at the next stop.”

“You think you can persuade me to take my ball and go home.”

“I dunno, how big is your ball? About five seven, penchant for black, metal arm? Where is he?”

“Miss Romanoff—”

“I heard you’d been assigned his new handler. I keep tabs.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah, but my dossier’s a little thin. Why do they call you Stalker?”

Stalker smiled.

Natasha easily caught the gun that he pulled on her and yanked until the slide disengaged from the barrel. He changed tactics and tried to hit her with it, swinging wide to butt her with the grip. She blocked his swing, grabbed his arm and pulled him forward until his head hit the wall.

They exchanged blows, getting into the aisle and moving backward as the train swayed under their feet. He was good, but something was holding him back. He didn’t take her seriously. He was like a cat who wasn’t quite ready to kill the rat.

“You don’t have anywhere to go,” Stalker said.

Natasha held her hands out, ready to block and strike back. “You really think you’re going to get past me and _then_ subdue someone who can turn your brain into jelly?”

“You took the collar off.”

“It’s been useful.”

He lunged and she dodged. She kicked at his legs but he jumped back. Just one step forward and Natasha kicked once, hard, hitting him on the chest. Stalker flew backward and landed hard on his spine.

“You know she can’t be trusted, don’t you?” Stalker laughed, holding his ribs. “She’s just another monster. Another horror we’ve unleashed.”

Natasha glared down, then turned and ran.

When she looked over her shoulder, Stalker was already up, gritting his teeth with annoyance as he adjusted his jacket, straightening his tie with a hard jerk of his hand.

Two bodies stood in the way of Natasha and the next car.

The Winter Soldier held Wanda by the back of the neck. She’d never seen him without his mask before. He was dressed like a civilian, in a simple leather jacket, black t-shirt, and biker boots. He could have gotten on the train without Natasha seeing him among the others in coach. Natasha knew he was holding a gun to Wanda’s back from the position of his arm.

She looked over her shoulder and saw Stalker slick his hair back into place. He slipped on a pair of black gloves that he pulled from his pockets.

“I’m sorry that it had to be this way, Natasha,” Stalker said. “But I—”

The sound of a gun going off three times nearly deafened Natasha and she dodged to the side. Stalker jerked, stumbled, and fell to the ground.

The Winter Soldier’s gun smoked as he held it out. His face was blank, relaxed, as if in peace. The pupils of his eyes glowed red.

“You got him?” Natasha asked.

“His mind is strange,” Wanda said. “I don’t know how long it’ll hold.”

They both stepped away from the Winter Soldier. Natasha had only seen him in glimpses, in grainy photographs and blurry footage. Now when she looked at him he seemed—

Delicate.

Not physically. He was broad and tall, barely contained by the doorway. It was the entire reason why she hadn’t been completely sure she wanted to let Wanda handle him. Yet there was a quality under the skin, like a pane of glass, easily breakable. On the other side of that pane was darkness, and Natasha didn’t want to disturb it.

“We don’t have long,” Natasha said. “People could pass through this car any minute now.”

When the Winter Soldier’s eyes followed her, they left a contrail of red that unnerved and haunted her.

Wanda stepped aside and the Winter Soldier passed by. Natasha began to pat down Stalker, looking for anything useful.

His jacket wasn’t wet with blood.

A hand grasped her by the throat.

“Motherf—,” Natasha choked out.

“Желание,” Stalker said.

Natasha blinked, trying to understand the random Russian word for longing. Then she heard a sound from behind her—Wanda, giving a small gasp.

“Ржавый,” Stalker growled.

Natasha tried to pull away but Stalker’s grip was as fierce as a predator’s.

“Something’s happening to him,” Wanda said.

Natasha managed to see behind her through watering eyes. The Winter Soldier wasn’t peaceful anymore. Trails of red still connected him to Wanda, but his face was contorted.

The Winter Soldier said one word, in English.

“No,” he whispered.

“Семнадцать,” Stalker said. “You think you can take what’s mine away from me? Рассвет! Печь!”

“Wanda!” Natasha croaked. “Little help here!”

“Девять!”

“Oh my god!” Wanda cried. “It hurts!”

Wanda was clutching the sides of her head as if a deafening noise was piercing her ears.

“Добросердечный.”

Wanda was still connected to him by streams of red.

“Wanda, let go of him,” Natasha choked out.

Wanda either didn’t hear her or she was too far gone, too deep into sharing the mind of the Winter Soldier. A mind that could be full of any and all types of landmines.

“возвращение на родину.”

Natasha reached behind her and dove into her back pocket.

This was going to hurt.

“You know, your poetry kind of sucks,” Natasha said. “Do you like constructive criticism?”

“Один.”

“You need to learn how to rhyme.”

Natasha slammed the widow bite onto his chest, still holding onto it with her hand. It activated and Stalker jerked under her—

Natasha convulsed and then fell aside, jerking and spasming until the electricity ran its course. When she came to she jerked up and gasped. His hand was no longer around her throat. He was starting to come to, as well, trying to find a handhold anywhere around him.

Stalker was trying to get up but then he made a grunt and was pressed to the ground. A red aura surrounded him and he couldn’t seem to move.

“Stop,” Wanda said between grunted teeth. “No more.”

The Winter Soldier was clutching his head, his teeth grinding in order to stop a scream.

“I can’t hold him anymore,” Wanda said.

The trails between the Winter Soldier and Wanda broke and the Soldier stumbled back. The look in his eyes—she’d seen it before. Trembling eyes seeing something beyond what was in the room, hardly seeing the room at all.

Stalker got up, holding a small gun at his side—Natasha saw the ankle holster now that Stalker had pulled the cuff up.

It happened fast.

Natasha put herself in between Stalker and Wanda, who was still crouched against the wall. By the time Stalker made his way to them, the Winter Soldier grabbed Stalker by the throat. Stalker tried to say something, but Natasha couldn’t imagine how strong his grip must be.

The Winter Soldier looked Natasha right in the eye. Then he looked at Wanda, his eyes pleading. He wanted to say something, but lacked words.

In one motion, the Winter Soldier pulled open the train car door and leapt out with Stalker.

#

Stalker stood up on shaky legs. His suit was spattered with pale brown mud. He adjusted his tie, which had become loose in the fight with the Widow. He lamented the loss of his suitcase and the weapons inside. There was also a communication device, which he’d never activated. He was alone on the side of the train tracks in the Sokovian countryside.

He heard the Winter Soldier coming up beside him.

“грузовой вагон,” Stalker said.

The Winter Soldier stopped. He had finished the trigger phrases too late, but just in time to save his own skin.

He turned to the Soldier, his face blank, but a frustration and a sadness clinging to it that Stalker couldn’t account for. He strode up to the aset and faced him, inches from the Winter Soldier’s face. He reached behind him and, with one gloved hand, Stalker grabbed a fistful of his hair.

He steered the asset’s face to look at him,  staring deep into the asset’s eyes. They were empty of anything, awaiting to be filled with some purpose to fixate on. But there was something else there, a delicacy.

He let go of the fistful of hair hard enough the the asset’s head jerked—but thereafter he was still and patient.

“Well,” Stalker said, adjusting his gloves. “I guess we’ll wait for the next one.”

#

Wanda stooped over, shaking. Natasha put her hand on the crown of her head, slowly moving her hand up and down, hoping the petting would soothe her.

They had escaped to their sleeper car, grabbing Stalker’s briefcase and hiding from the security moving through the cars, looking for the source of the sounds they had heard from the front of the train.

She reached down and offered her hand, which Wanda took and held in a tight grip in soft hands.

“It’s okay,” Natasha said, pressing her body next to Wanda’s. “It’s going to be okay.”

“It hurts so much,” Wanda said.

“Is it like a migraine?”

“Like torture. Like I’ve been electrocuted. Oh god, my _head_.”

Natasha got up and pulled the blinds down over the window, then turned off the lights.

“Lay down,” Natasha said.

“They know where we are,” Wanda said. “We have to get off this train.”

“Not until we’re in Romania. Then we switch trains and go to Hungary. Or steal a car. Or get on a tourist bus. I’ll think of something.”

Wanda laid down, her eyes closed to shut out the remainder of the light that leaked through the linen of the blinds.

Natasha sat down next to her, putting her hand on her forehead. There was no heat, but she was clammy.

“Why did we even get on this train?” Wanda asked.

“We needed to be moving,” Natasha said. “In the train station, we were cornered. We had no way out.”

“I guess that makes sense. I _guess_.”

Wanda groaned and turned over, toward Natasha. She curled up along the line of her body, covering her face with her hands.

Natasha wondered what she would want, if she were the one with the psychic hangover.

Natasha began to stroke Wanda’s hair, from the crown of her head to her shoulder. Wanda pressed her face into her hands all the more, but her body was relaxing.

“When I feel better,” Wanda said. “There are things I need to tell you. About that man. About his handler. And Hydra. But right now—”

“Don’t push yourself, Wanda,” Natasha said. “You had a killer in your head.”

“He was—”

“You need to rest.”

Wanda groaned into her hands, scooting closer, pressing her forehead into Natasha’s leg. Wanda reached up and grabbed Natasha’s leg with one hand and Natasha stiffened. She still stroked Wanda’s hair so Wanda wouldn’t notice the reaction. Something was happening, having Wanda’s hand that far up her thigh, and the last thing she needed was for Wanda to notice. It didn’t help that Natasha didn’t understand. She thought she’d buried instincts like these, put them away deep in her past. Something ticked in Natasha’s body and she felt herself flush.

“Wanda…,” Natasha whispered.

“What?” Wanda whispered in kind.

Natasha took a single finger and laced it under the hair that was falling over Wanda’s face. She pushed it aside.

“It occurs to me I never asked what you want,” Natasha said.

“What do you mean?” Wanda asked.

“I mean…I have a plan. A vague plan, but it’s a plan. Get in contact with the CIA, trade some secrets, have an American life. It’s all set up, and I’ll figure out the rest when I show up.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because everybody’s got plans. Things they want, dreams, hopes.”

“I can’t think about that right now.”

“Why not? Seems like the time.”

“I’m being chased by a monster and his beaten-down dog, my brother is being held by Nazis, and the only person who’s ‘got my back’ might have killed me in another life.”

Acid rose up Natasha’s throat. She swallowed hard, but it still remained.

Wanda sighed. “I’m sorry. That was unfair.”

“No,” Natasha said. “It wasn’t.”

Wanda sat up, brushing her hair from her face. Natasha could practically see the needles in Wanda’s eyes, how hard it was to keep them open and focused on her. But Wanda was looking at her, really looking at her. Natasha let herself be stone, unaffected by whatever she was going to say.

“Why didn’t we kill them?” Wanda asked.

“Bodies are hard to get rid of in transit,” Natasha said.

“Dumping their bodies on the side of the railroad tracks seems like it would be easy.”

“People patrol tracks. Two dead bodies and a relatively warm body will tell them exactly which train to look for.”

“You have it all figured out.”

“Wanda, you have to trust me on these things.”

“I could have killed them both, you know it.”

“I do.”

“You should have let me—”

“No.”

“Why?”

“The last thing I want is for you to be more like me.”

It was as if Wanda had been struck. Natasha leaned in and put her hand on the side of Wanda’s face.

“This is them,” Natasha said. “They’ll do this to you. They’ll throw you into a corner where you think the only option is you and the bullet in another person’s brain. Don’t fall for it. The moment you do, they control you.”

Wanda swallowed hard. Her eyes closed, as if she could take no more of the light coming in from the window. Natasha squeezed her shoulder and let her sway where she sat.

“I should be more grateful to you,” Wanda said.

“You were a little right,” Natasha said. “In another life I’d have…it would just be my job.”

“You never really said why you chose to help me.”

“I didn’t want you to be in the wrong hands.”

“You already made that happen.”

“You’ve got a brother out there—someone else who’s enhanced. That’s dangerous.”

“You’ve said that before.”

Keeping eye contact with Wanda was an exercise in keeping her cool. She could only imagine the disaster that would occur if she didn’t hold her ground.

But something was giving. She parted her lips, as if to speak. Nothing came out and Wanda seemed to be winning.

So Natasha let her win.

“I don’t know,” Natasha said. “I couldn’t let you stay there. I couldn’t.”

Wanda laid her forehead down on Natasha’s shoulder. She sighed and all her weight went into her slumping body. Natasha held her by the back of the head, petting her hair once again.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit chapter.

Wanda stood close, hooking her arm around Natasha’s. It was a little cold, but that wasn’t necessarily why she was holding so tight onto Natasha. They walked together, looking all the world like two young friends, probably students, just arriving in Budapest.

All the same, Wanda leaned into Natasha.

“What do we do now?” Wanda asked in a quiet mumble.

“I have some old contacts here,” Natasha said. “I hope they’re still good. Then we can get to Berlin, to the CIA safehouse.”

“How do you know Berlin is safe?”

“Schafer set it up for me, in case things went bad.”

“You trusted Schafer.”

“…Yeah. Funnily enough, I did. He cared about his country and he gave me a chance. Those two used to be mutually exclusive.”

“I’m sorry. He died because of me.”

Natasha turned and put her hands on Wanda’s shoulders. “No. Don’t do that to yourself, Wanda. The only people responsible for Schafer’s death are the KGB. They had no right to kill him, and they had no right to keep you caged like an animal.”

Wanda nodded, then lifted her chin, proudly. “I’ll make them pay for him, too.”

#

Natasha buzzed for apartment 14b. The noise was tinny and rattled in high pitch three times as Natasha hit it at a rhythm.

“What do you want?” a voice said on the other end.

“I have a grocery delivery for Mr. Pesti,” Natasha said.

“Bring them around back.”

Wanda and Natasha steered themselves into the back alleyway, and when they approached the rear entrance, a woman, dressed in a house dress and apron, held it open for them. She was silent as they passed her and moved around the corner to apartment 14b.

An old man opened it, wizened and almost shaking with the effort to stand. Natasha ducked into the apartment, pulling Wanda inside.

The rest of the apartment was empty. It had deep dark wallpaper which peeled in some places, and though it was neat, it still needed to be cleaned. Natasha turned to the old man, who pulled himself up, no longer shaking.

“Almos,” Natasha said, coming forward with her arms outstretched.

“Natalia,” the old man, Almos, said before embracing her with arms stronger than they looked.

They parted but Almos still held Natasha at arm’s length to look at her. Then his attention went to Wanda, who was standing there in polite silence.

“And so who is this?” Almos asked.

“Almos, this is Wanda Maximoff,” Natasha said. “She’s a friend of mine.”

“A friend, eh? Never thought I’d see the day when you just call someone a friend. She must be very special. Come, come you must be in dire need of tea.”

Wanda immediately perked up at the mention of tea.

“He seems like a harmless old man,” Wanda whispered to Natasha as they sat on the couch together, shoulder to shoulder, waiting for Almos to be done in the kitchen. “But I’m guessing he isn’t.”

“They’ll never be able to defang Almos,” Natasha said. “I once saw him kick the crap out of a man while still recovering from exposure to a nerve agent. That was a long time ago, but you know…people, they don’t change.”

“They don’t, do they?”

Wanda simply raised a brow.

“Is he part of why you didn’t want to come to Budapest?”

Natasha smirked and nodded. “I never wanted to have to ask Almos for anything. He’s meant to be done with the big, scary stuff. He ought to be left alone. But this is more important.”

Almos came back with the tea, which Wanda took gratefully. It was properly brewed and when Almos offered her tea she stirred in one spoonful and drank from it.

“Listen—,” Wanda began.

“No,” Almos said. “I know you’re on the run, and that the KGB lost track of you. I do still have my ear to the ground. But right now, I want to have a good conversation with you, after which you will go straight to bed, and no protesting. Now, tell me, Natalia: what have you been up to?”

#

Natasha groaned as she laid down. Time had done nothing to stave the pain of her bruises. In fact, they were exactly as swollen as they would get. She was in the midst of pulling off her jacket when Wanda reached up and helped her take it off. Wanda extracted the jacket from Natasha’s stiff form. Wanda’s hands on her shoulders were calming and warm. Her skin tingled where skin touched skin and she closed her eyes.

It was probably time to deal with this.

The fact was that she had a crush.

She knew what to do with those feelings—where to put them and how to exercise caution. She was a psychic, but not _that_ kind of psychic, so all Natasha had to worry about were some tells. She knew them all. She’d infiltrated governments, used subterfuge and forms of seduction, all without giving herself away. It wouldn’t be a problem, she assured herself.

Then Wanda moved Natasha’s hair away from her face and all she could think was ‘ _pretty girl_ ,’ her throat constricting with the power of her nerves.

“How are the rest of your bruises?” Wanda asked.

“Nothing an ice pack won’t—,” Natasha hissed as her sentence was interrupted by Wanda’s touch.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Wanda didn’t take her hand away, just let it slide lower, away from the bruise on her ribs and down into the curve of her waist. Natasha stiffened. Her breath was a cloud she held to her chest, one that would slip away at the slightest shift of air.

“So, um,” Natasha tried, that gust of air leaving all at once. “We should probably get some rest. It’s a long way to Berlin and I—”

Wanda laid her lips on Natasha’s and once pressed there the pair were made, for a moment, completely immobile.

Natasha’s mind was wonderfully blank. There were no plots or plans, no continuous control. The bulk of her thought was filled up with _‘pretty girl_ ’ and when Wanda began to kiss her in earnest, she found herself kissing back, slow, but without hesitation.

It was when Wanda’s tongue entered her mouth that she knew it was all over. The silken pressure against her tongue sent pulses of pleasure down her body.

Wanda was steering her. She was leading her back, the gentle pressure of her fingers seeming to command Natasha’s every movement.

The bed was made only for one. Natasha fell into it, back of the knees hitting the bed and ultimately buckling. She fell onto her rear and Wanda kneeled next to her, kissing her from above.

There was a muffled presence inside of her telling her that things like this didn’t come without conditions. There was always something that people wanted, some exchange of power. It was the way she was trained, to look out for those tells, to be wary of agents trained for seduction. But the way Wanda was touching her neck, she was scrambling to figure out what the play was. Mostly because her brain was addled. She hadn’t been touched this gently in so long that her skin was hungry and she wanted to know what it felt like to be sated. Natasha began to kiss back in earnest, forgetting herself, or making a choice to open herself up. She wouldn’t admit to herself which was which. Both options were unprofessional.

Wanda had grown on Natasha fast, like a creeper vine, and now her limbs were wrapping around her like one, helping Natasha onto her back.

Giving up control was nice. More than nice. Wanda pressing her into bed, taking the lead, starting to work on Natasha’s clothes—it was good to surrender. Whatever Wanda wanted, Natasha was ready to give it to her. Heat began to pool in her hips.

Wanda’s hand slid up Natasha’s shirt, under her bra and she began to fondle her breasts in gentle grasps. Natasha’s breath came out in ragged gasps, her eyes fluttering closed as the sensation moved through her. She reached up and placed her hand over Wanda’s, feeling what it felt like to be an other, touching her like that.

Natasha’s clothes slid off her as easy as snake skin and she found herself in just her underwear, Wanda still frustratingly clothed in her flowy, soft layers, though she had kicked off her boots. Wanda hovered over Natasha on all fours, her hair falling over her shoulder.

“It’s okay,” Wanda said. “You can touch me.”

It wasn’t until Wanda said something that Natasha noticed that she had only just touched Wanda’s hand. Her hands were balled into fists beside her, as if she were afraid to touch _anything_ , even the bed she was lying on. She flexed her hands open and reached up.

She coaxed the layers from Wanda’s torso, a flowy cardigan sliding off her shoulders before she helped lift Wanda’s shirt over her head. Wanda’s breasts were almost falling out of her little black bra and Natasha was transfixed by the shape of them as gravity and the fabric fought. Wanda reached behind her and unhooked her bra, letting the straps fall off her shoulders before she tossed it away.

Wanda pressed her body flat to Natasha and kissed her again. Natasha moved her hands over Wanda’s bare back as she coveted the feeling of their breasts pressing into one another. Wanda hiked her skirt up over her hips and pressed their hips together. Natasha gasped into Wanda’s mouth. There was still a slip of fabric between them and it was doing little to dull the sensation as Wanda pressed in with her hips. Natasha felt a deep throbbing as the blood rushed down and urged her to buck her hips up.

The pressure of Wanda’s body disappeared for a moment. Natasha made a noise of protest, but it stopped when Wanda grabbed the side of her underwear and pulled them down.

Wanda started with the inside of her thighs, kissing and tonguing at the flesh. Her fingers pressed into Natasha. She groaned and her head fell back into the bed as Wanda’s fingers pressed deep into her in one slick motion. Natasha didn’t think she had gotten that wet, not this fast. She wanted Wanda’s tongue, badly, lifting her hips as if to get attention. Wanda obliged.

Natasha arched her back and found herself reaching down, putting her fingers in Wanda’s hair. Wanda was buried between her legs and seemed to have no perception outside of what she was doing with her tongue and her fingers. Natasha couldn’t help the high cries that were eking out of her throat. She stretched out on the matress, her head lolling to the side as she closed her eyes and thought only of the riling orgasm gathering in her body.

When she came, the intensity caught her off-guard. She had known it was coming, felt it build, but it was like rocket fuel in her bloodstream, making her jerk and shake as she cried out. Realizing what she’d done, she clamped her hand over her mouth, but the noise had already escaped.

When she looked down at Wanda, her eyes were hungry and dark. She was still touching Natasha’s clitoris, rubbing it slightly to let Natasha have as much of the delivered orgasm as she could handle. Then she put her fingers into her mouth and sucked on them, keeping eye contact with Natasha as she tasted her.

Natasha, body still humming, rose to stand on her knees. Wanda got up, mirroring her. Natasha reached under the skirt that Wanda was still wearing and grabbed at the flesh of her ass, fingers dipping close to the inner thigh. She pressed her mouth into Wanda’s neck, kissing along the length of it to press her mouth just under the jaw. Wanda’s gasp was almost a laugh. To Natasha, it was music.

She got Wanda onto her back, and when she tried to unzip her skirt, Natasha stopped her hands.

“You look cute with the skirt on,” Natasha said.

Wanda’s grin showed a line of wet, white teeth.

Natasha pulled of Wanda’s underwear and disappeared underneath her skirt. She sought out Wanda with tongue and fingers. Wanda shook and moved under her as Natasha worked, explored, and pressed. Wanda hiked up her skirt just a little, enough to see Natasha better, but she didn’t take it off.

When Wanda came it was in high-pitched sighs and gasping breaths of air. Then Natasha began to wonder—

Wanda gave up two other orgasms, after Natasha settled in and determined to get at least one more out of her. Natasha only stopped at two because of the way Wanda seemed to collapse, boneless onto the mattress after having arched her back and grabbed the bedding.

Natasha pulled away but swallowed her lips, savoring the taste of her. The room smelled like sex. There was an aura in the room in a way that Natasha hadn’t been able to experience for too long. It was calm, dim, and, most rare for her, safe. At least, it had that illusion. Natasha didn’t dwell on it, surrendering to the safety of the intimacy.

“Come to bed,” Wanda said in a sleepy voice.

Natasha collapsed next to her, covering them both with the thick, heavy blanket.


	9. Chapter 9

Natasha stirred, jerking a little as she realized she didn’t know her surroundings. Then she saw the wallpaper, remembered, and calmed. Budapest again.

She was looking at Wanda’s back.

Wanda was sound asleep, head resting on the mattress, her lashes resting against her cheeks. Natasha looked at the expanse that was the plane of her back and studied the rise of her spine, the freckles on her skin, the pool of her hair under her head.

Worry gathered in her gut. It wasn’t regret—she’d have a hard time ever feeling regret about this. Worry was something else. Worry about what came next, after the waking world caught up with them. Worry that Wanda had gotten Natasha out of her system and wouldn’t want her anymore. Worry that it would be awkward, that Wanda would say it was a mistake.

Wanda was cute when she stirred. She inhaled hard through her nose and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. She rolled over and immediately caught Natasha’s eyes.

They were so soft that Natasha wondered what she was worried about in the first place.

“Morning,” Natasha said, resting her cheek on her fist.

Wanda smiled, soft and mischievous. She trailed a finger over Natasha’s cheek and then moved her thumb over her mouth.

Natasha leaned down and kissed her. It was a soft kiss, meant for mornings when breakfast was more on their minds than anything else. Wanda grabbed Natasha around the middle and pulled her close, putting her head under the curve of her neck.

“There’s something on the horizon,” Wanda said. “I don’t know what it is or what will happen. I just know it’s waiting for me. How do you prepare for what you don’t know, even when you know it’s coming.”

Natasha smoothed Wanda’s hair. “Preparing’s not easy. A million scenarios can go through your head, you can make a hundred back-up plans, and the unexpected will still find you.”

Unexpected, like finding a girl with psychic powers before your perfectly-executed plan to escape the KGB is about to take place. Unexpected like growing close to her. Unexpected like last night. In her old life she would call it a complication. Now she didn’t know what to call it.

“You have a little line in your brow,” Wanda said, trailing her pinky over Natasha’s brow. “That means you’re thinking too hard.”

“How can you tell?” Natasha asked.

“You’re not so good at hiding your tells as you think. Honestly, how you survived this long is beyond me.”

“Funny.”

“I know.”

Wanda leaned forward and laid a kiss on Natasha’s lips. It was chaste and soft, like the moment, though the sheets were barely clinging on to the outline of Wanda’s body. Natasha wanted to etch the sight of thin sheets around the curve of Wanda’s body, like memorizing a piece of art that moved you and which photographs would do no justice. She laid her hand over Wanda’s ribs, which curved perfectly under her hand.

“I would give anything,” Natasha said. “To not get out of bed today.”

“I know,” Wanda said. “But this spy shit could really use your full attention.”

“I’d rather give _you_ my full attention.”

“You already did.”

Her smile was wrapped around the words of that last sentence and it made Natasha’s own smile curve into fullness.

“Natasha?”

“Yes.”

“Where would you be now, if none of this would have happened?”

“Well…probably in the CIA holding facility in Stuttgart being either questioned or doing paperwork until my eyes bleed. Nothing near as exciting as what _we_ _’re_ doing.”

“I wish you were there. At least you’d be safe.”

“I’d be bored out of my mind.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Neither am I. The people I worked for weren’t hot on paper trails. The CIA are sticklers for it, when they don’t incinerate it. It would’ve killed me.”

Wanda brushed her finger on the tip of Natasha’s nose, making it scrunch as she smiled.

“You always have a joke. They’re not always good, but you have them.”

“They’re not good?”

Wanda quieted her with another soft kiss, a little less chaste this time.

There was a sound from another room—an alarm clock that was quickly silenced. It was six a.m. That was always when Almos woke up. He’d be wide awake and ready in moments.

Reality was butting in and Natasha whined, pulling Wanda close and snuggling into her neck.

“We have to get up,” Natasha mumbled.

“You don’t seem like you want to,” Wanda said.

“I’m very stupid. Don’t listen to me.”

“I wish you’d told me that earlier. I could have saved myself the trouble of you dragging me all over Europe.”

“You know, some people would call that ‘romantic.’”

There was a vibration in her skin from the way she laughed, deep and humming. “You don’t seem to be a romantic, but I’m learning there’s more to you than it appears.”

Natasha clung to her harder. There was more. A lot more. She hoped Wanda never had to know it. She hoped that was a book she would be able to close, and shelve, or maybe even bury in the coffin where she’d be leaving her old life. The war between wanting to share all of it, every ugly detail, with someone butted up against the fact that she didn’t want to see horror in _that face_. If Wanda ever looked at her in terror and disgust, it might be the thing that broke her. Maybe not all at once, but little by little, in every wandering memory that followed her, in whatever new life was waiting for her after _this_.

“Why me?” Natasha whispered.

Wanda’s body whispered against her. Her eyes flicked over Natasha as she let the question muse.

“I think you’re funny,” she finally said.

A warmth spread into Natasha, knowing that it was the shadow of the full truth, but still truth.

“Come on, Wanda,” Natasha said. “We’ve got a day to meet.”

#

Almos was still a legend at a breakfast spread. He was the sort of old fashioned that insisted that his guests be given the best, no matter if he had much or little. There was a lot of bread, eggs and stewed beans with vegetables. They all tucked in, a sense of safety settling in over them like an umbrella. It seemed Wanda was as hungry for a meal that wasn’t rationed or rushed and Natasha was. They both understood how priceless moments of safety and comfort like this were and took full advantage of them.

“This is perfect, Almos, thank you,” Natasha said.

Almos waved a hand, an old man too flattered to say anything else.

With their plates cleaned and Almos beginning the washing up, shooing Wanda when she tried to help, Natasha felt it was the right time to get on with things.

“Did anything crop up last night?” Natasha asked.

Almos gathered the dishes into the sink and wiped his hands before sitting down. He collected himself and put his folded hands on the table.

“Hydra is not as subtle as they used to be,” Almos said. “That’s the good news. The bad news is that they’re that way because they’ve become more ambitious. And more powerful.”

“Great,” Natasha said. “That’s exactly what this political climate needs.”

“They’re _responsible_ for the political climate. That’s one of the reasons one of my runners could find them. The fact that they’re reaching out means that they find people who don’t necessarily agree with the organization. Those people talk, and the trail leads back to their servers, and therefore their base.”

“You’ve found them?” Wanda said.

“Don’t get your hopes up just yet. Finding them is one thing. Being sure it’s them is another. Not to mention the act of infiltration.”

Wanda leaned in. “Tell me where it is. I’ll blow the doors off it.”

“I like your enthusiasm,” Natasha said with a tiny smile. “But the fact of the matter is, if they realize you’re there, and that they have your brother, it’s going to turn into a hostage negotiation. Those are trickier than extractions. A lot trickier.”

Wanda deflated, a moodiness falling over her face. The reality had settled in. To be one of the most powerful psychics ever created being told she couldn’t psychic her way out of things had to be rough. Natasha had cultivated patience over a lifetime. Wanda was newly super-powered. Natasha hoped experience outweighed instinct.

Almos sat down at the table and pulled out an old tablet with a cracked screen and grimy buttons. It looked like it had seen hell and back. It was pre-hologram era, but still, apparently, a dutiful work horse.

The schematics for the facility rotated, transparent walls and floors showing the architecture in full detail. It showed an old administrative building, soviet-era, multistoried and wide, with classical and brutalist architecture jutting together awkwardly. Then the animation brought them under the building. They’d been digging. Natasha wondered if the office workers of the administrative building above even knew what they were sitting on top of every day.

“It wasn’t easy, getting this intel,” Almos said. “Hydra is digging their claws into the government, wherever they can. There are a few places where they’ve infiltrated completely. We had a man inside, and this was the last thing he got out. We’ve been sitting on it. Had a few offers to sell the intel, but that’s not how I do things. I’m glad it’ll be of some use.”

“Who did you lose?” Natasha asked.

“No one you would have known. He was young, reckless. We won’t find his body, but I’m taking care of the children. They won’t want for anything.”

Natasha nodded. Wanda’s face went slack as the gravity settled in. Someone had died for this information, information that was going to benefit them. It had to be sobering her fury a bit.

“The reports from inside suggests that someone with formidable abilities is being held here,” Almos said, pointing to a series of rooms that would be perfect for labs and a prison. “There are no other exits or entrances but the ones that Hydra uses. It’s a death trap.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Wanda said. “Not for us.”

“You got an idea?” Natasha asked.

“Once we get my brother—once we get up to surface level—we bury them.”

A chill went through Natasha, and this time it wasn’t a good one. “Are you seriously thinking of burying people alive?”

“I can do it with a thought. You know that. We can do the first part your way—infiltrate and get Pietro before he becomes a hostage. But I want them to pay.”

“You can’t just—”

“Why not? They’re the people that stole my life. They hurt me. They hurt my brother. Who knows what else they’re doing right now, to their other ‘assets,’ to governments and people. You know what they are.”

There was nothing Natasha could say to that. They did have an opportunity to take out a Hydra cell—to bury every last one of those bastards before they could hurt anyone else.

That’s not what made her hesitate.

“You’re fine with that?” Natasha asked. “Killing all those people?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Wanda asked.

“I’m not about to turn you into a killer.”

“What if I already am?”

You could hear a mouse’s heartbeat in the silence that came after. Almos set his plate down and silently exited the room, leaving Natasha and Wanda to the conversation they were about to have.

“I didn’t know,” Natasha said.

“They sent me on missions,” Wanda said. “Before I knew they were Hydra. I’ve killed for them. I’m not a child. I keep telling you that.”

“I don’t think you’re a child.”

“Then stop treating me like one.”

“How many people have you killed?”

“Two.”

The low number made a difference. Maybe Wanda could share the circumstances, and that might make even more difference, but the fact of the matter was, two bodies on a mission was something entirely different from collapsing a base full of people into the dirt, as if a sinkhole had opened up in the earth.

But a body was still a body and Wanda had already racked up two.

“I’m sorry,” Natasha said. “I didn’t know. I should have guessed.”

“Yeah,” Wanda said. “I didn’t think you had to know.”

“You’ve killed people. That doesn’t necessarily make you a killer. You don’t have to do this. We’ll find another way to stop them.”

“How? Have them arrested? Change hearts and minds? They won’t stop being what they are. Cut off one head…”

“I know the motto, and it’s pretty apt.”

“Then why—”

“Because I don’t want _you_ to be the one to do it.”

Wanda was silenced, and then waited for Natasha to explain further.

“Listen…,” Natasha said. “These bodies…you carry them with you. You feel the weight. I know you know that, already, even if you think you don’t. Something like this, it’s going to take a toll. I don’t want that for you.”

“I know about the weight,” Wanda said. “I know about the nightmares. I also know about the power and the reasons I did it. They might have been enemies of Hydra, but they hadn’t been innocent either. I want to swing the scales, and I know that I can. They deserve what’s coming to them. You know what they’ve done, and what they want. If I let that world come into being, ever, I’d sleep worse than if I’d opened up the earth.”

Natasha wished of all things that she wasn’t in such fervent understanding of what Wanda was feeling. It was a vengeful, hot sensation. Natasha had felt it before setting fires, and before pulling an especially ready trigger. She had been so sure she was right all those times.

“Wanda,” Natasha said. “I’ve slept on nights after I was sure I was trading the right lives. It didn’t make the dreams any less darker. Blood’s still blood—it weighs and smells the same.”

Wanda recoiled by centimeters, shaking just enough to be noticeable. If it was anger, it wasn’t hot, and not necessarily directed at Natasha. If it was fear she was controlling it well, but not enough for it not to leave traces of itself behind. If it was both, Natasha admired Wanda’s control. She was beginning to show more of it, though she still had the potential to be explosive. All Natasha had to do was not be afraid of that explosive energy.

Something red pinged in the back of Wanda’s eyes, there and then gone like a strobing lighthouse.

Easier said than done.

“We’ll make them pay,” Natasha said. “Just let me be in charge of that part, okay?”

Wanda searched Natasha’s face. Whatever anger and fear there had been fell back like a tide and she nodded.

“Come up with something soon,” Wanda said. “For both our sakes.”

#

Almos wasn’t going on the mission, but that didn’t mean he had lost his touch. The stock room was still clean and tidy. No dust had been allowed to gather over the equipment.

If they wanted to, they could have taken a small team and raided the building, if that wouldn’t have meant immediate media attention, which was something they badly didn’t need. Almos’ stock of weapons was on par with some apocalypse preppers, and plenty of ammo to boot. That wasn’t what Natasha needed. Not then.

What they needed was disguises.

Natasha was immediately drawn to a blonde wig, jaw-length, and curly. She moved it around and held it up beside her head, near a mirror.

Beside her, Wanda had picked up a very short, black bob. It reminded Natasha of the kind of Cabaret nineteen-thirties pre-war look, and it wasn’t Wanda at all. Though, that was the point. They got into their wigs, seeming to transform from that alone.

Natasha considered her face in the mirror. “You know, I hear the Americans have a mask that can holographically project another face onto yours. Could use one of those right about now.”

“Will this be enough?” Wanda asked, putting in a pair of blue contacts.

Natasha could hardly see Wanda through her disguise, but if anybody had been close to her, like Stalker or any of the people that might have worked on handling her, they’d be made. As it was, Wanda would never wear a tight-fitting, almost tailored-looking suit with business shoes and a scarf.

Natasha reached under her skirt and attached the small beretta to her thigh, tightening the holster around her thigh.

“How do I look?” Natasha asked. “Office chic?”

“Very administrative,” Wanda said with a smile.

A voice came from the door. “Ladies,” Almos said. “I found some photos of your brother. When you get back, I’ll have three passports and airplane tickets waiting. They might be shoddy, but it’s what I can do at the last minute. You’ll have limited time to get to the airport without being caught up to. I’m sorry, that’s all I can do. My, ah, resources aren’t what they used to be in the old days.”

“I know,” Natasha said. “You’ve done so much for us. For both of us.”

Natasha grabbed Almos by the shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. The old man smiled and touched the soft skin where she’d kissed him.

“Go,” Almos said. “Go, go. Find your brother, girl. Get him out of their hands.”


	10. Chapter 10

 

It wasn’t often that Natasha had the opportunity to think of the word ‘awesome’ in its original meaning, but there they were. Tendrils reached out from Wanda’s eyes and fingers, coiling around the room. They snaked into the cameras around the room, their lenses lighting up red. They walked through the lobby as if they belonged there and Natasha knew that somewhere in a security desk was a man with eyes lit up red who was seeing nothing at all.

“Now where do we go?” Wanda asked as they moved into the back hallways.

Natasha tapped her finger to her temple. “It’s all up here, don’t you worry. Now that we’re in the back of the building it should be easy to…”

There were guards, because of course there was. It wasn’t enough that the entire front was a functioning building that served as a human shield between possible invaders and Hydra. There had to be guys by a door.

“Hi,” Natasha said, chipper. “We’re just a little turned around—”

The guards weren’t stupid. They immediately went for their radios.

Before Natasha could leap forward, red light surrounded the guard and he whipped across the hall, barreling, in midair, into the other guard. Natasha jumped at the violence of it, the pair of them slamming into the wall hard enough to knock them out.

“Well, I was going to get them to let us in,” Natasha said. “But your way’s pretty good, too.”

Natasha picked up one of their hands, pressed it into the palm scanner by the elevator, and when it opened, Wanda held it open.

Natasha dragged the two men into a hallway closet, smashing their radios under her heels for good measure. The door closed the door and Wanda rotated her hands and the metal of the doorknob twisted until it stuck the door in place, locking them inside.

They got on the elevator. It went down seven stories. Natasha pressed the button for sublevel 7 and they stood next to each other in silence, their presence quiet and meditative.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen when I see him,” Wanda said. “I don’t know how I’ll react if he’s hurt, or worse.”

“They wouldn’t kill him,” Natasha reassured her.

“He’s not dead. I would know it. Still, there are things that Hydra could do—”

“You can’t think about that right now. We have to stay chill. Anything could go wrong, and we don’t want this to turn into a fight. This is extraction, and you can’t mind-control this whole building, plus everybody who might see us on the street. You’ve got to trust me.”

“I do,” Wanda said, and her voice was soft and deep.

Wanda reached out and squeezed Natasha’s hand. A thrill went up Natasha’s arm at the touch and she squeezed back.

“Looking forward to meeting your brother,” Natasha said. “Is he as exciting as you are?”

Wanda let go of her hand and merely smirked.

#

Almos had done a good job with the scan badges. They were current and doors happily beeped before being opened as she moved through the halls. The people she passed bore striking resemblance to the oblivious people in the building above. Just office workers in professional clothing, going about their day. Her stomach flipped at the thought of what they _really_ were, what they did , and what they stood for. Natasha had begun her training under Soviet rule, and a lesson that had stuck was never to give quarter to Nazis.

A dark part of her brain nudged her to wonder whether or not Wanda’s plan wasn’t that ridiculous.

Still. They would be dealt with.

The further into the level they went, the more guards were present. Office suits and lab coats made way to black uniforms and flak jackets.

It turned out, Natasha didn’t have to worry about Wanda. She was keeping in stride and doing what she had been advised—don’t make eye contact, don’t rush, and act like you belong there.

It wasn’t until they reached Lab 707 that Natasha started to get nervous. She didn’t sweat, not really, not when the pressure was on. From the set nature of her face, it seemed Wanda had that skill, too. All the same, there was energy vibrating off of Wanda. It was her turn.

Wanda pressed her badge to the reader and it beeped. A camera zoomed around at eye-level and searched for a face.

_Retinal scan required_ , said a friendly electronic voice.

It came down to this. If the contacts worked, they would be in. If not, they would have to go to a plan B that Natasha definitely didn’t want to go to.

_Retinal scan recognized. Welcome Dr. Sutherland_.

The door opened and they moved to go through—

“She’s not authorized,” a voice came from their left.

The guard had his hand on Natasha’s shoulder. She ground her jaw. She did not like men to touch her there, on the shoulder, to stick her feet to the ground, as if he had to do only that and she was in his complete control.

“She’s with me,” Wanda insisted.

“I don’t make the rules,” the guard said. “She’s gotta stay out here.”

Wanda turned to face the guard. Her feet were planted and her eyes were furious.

Wanda flicked her fingers and a cloud of red wove its way across the space between them and wormed into his head.

The guard stiffened, like he was an over-sized action figure.

Wanda gently grasped Natasha’s arm and steered her inside. It was hard for Natasha to tamp down the smug smile that grew on her face.

#

The lab inside was cooly lit, the temperature dipping suddenly. It had to have been forty degrees, where it had been room temperature in the hall.

Wanda’s eyes darted back and forth, searching as they moved further into the lab.

She stopped hard enough that there was a hiss under the balls of her feet.

The twins didn’t look perfectly alike, but it didn’t take a lot of looking to know that this was her brother. Where her hair was dark reddish-brown, his was silver-white. His eyes were closed in a deep slumber. The container they had him in was icy-blue and frosted.

They moved into the large lab, acting as if they really belonged there. Natasha scanned the room strategically, lamenting that there was only one exit. The Hydra scientists were too preoccupied to notice the new bodies in the room and the two of them clung close to the corners and walls to keep from being observed.

“I need the tank,” came a voice that shocked Natasha right in her nerves.

Natasha grabbed Wanda’s arm and moved them both behind a bank of unattended lab equipment. Stalker was standing there, leaning into a man in a lab coat who seemed to be in charge of the lab. Stalker was back in a clean suit, but it was not as new and neat as his outfit on the train had been. It had wrinkled and wear on it, whereas the suit on the train looked like it had been newly cut out of a bolt of expensive cloth.

“We don’t have another way to contain the subject,” said the other man.

“Then you should have thought about having more than one tank, shouldn’t you have? I don’t work with an organization as sloppy as this, do I? Maybe I should go back to working freelance.”

“Sir, we’re doing the best we can.”

“The asset is unstable. Put a collar on the quick one and get him out of there.”

“Yes, sir,” the man mumbled and scrambled, gesturing for some of his assistants to help get Pietro out of the tank. They began to warm up some equipment and there was no telling how long that would take.

This was good, Natasha thought. They hadn’t quite known how Pietro was being held and this saved them the trouble of breaking him out.

“Don’t do anything until they’ve let him out,” Natasha whispered.

“Natasha…,” Wanda whispered, squeezing her bicep.

“It’s going to be okay, we’ll get him out.”

“ _Natasha_.”

Natasha turned her head. Her heart stopped.

The Winter Soldier was staring right at them.

How long he’d been standing there, they had no way of knowing. He was clinging to the shadows, only half his face visible in the blue light of a computer screen. His eyes were wide and wet with fear as he stared right at Wanda. His chest was rising and falling evenly, as if with much practice and care.

“ _Shit_ ,” Natasha whispered.

There was a long pause in which they stared down the soldier and the soldier didn’t move. He was looking at Wanda exclusively and a calm seemed to settle over Wanda. She put her hand up, as if approaching a weaving, stamping horse.

Natasha eyed Stalker through the bank of computers and lab equipment. He had his back to them, likely over-confident that his asset wasn’t going to attack while his back was turned. As Wanda moved closer to the Winter Soldier, Natasha pinned her eyes on Stalker.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you before,” Wanda whispered. “It hurt me, too.”

The soldier’s eyebrows ticked and furrowed, his head jerking in slight motions. He screwed his eyes shut and shook his head, as if trying to shake a bad dream.

“I won’t do it again,” Wanda promised. “Unless you want it.”

The soldier’s eyes moved slowly to pin on Stalker, who still had his back to them. The naked fear was clear in the amount of white in his eyes and how fully still everything about him was. Natasha could see conflict like he was transparent and everything inside him were crossed, taut ropes.

The way he was looking at Wanda, it was like he was begging for something.

A trail of red moved out of her fingers and traveled like a serpent in the sky until it entered his temple. The soldier’s eyes closed and a profound relief settled over his face.

“ _Soldat_ ,” Stalker snapped.

Natasha grabbed Wanda and turned her around. Wanda picked up the clue quickly. Natasha pretended to be at work on an open terminal and Wanda put her eye onto a microscope. Stalker paid them no mind and they heard the soldier’s light footsteps as he rejoined his handler.

“What do we do now?” Wanda asked.

“Wait,” Natasha said.

They remained busy for the next few seconds until they heard it—a hiss and the sound of a mechanical door opening. They both turned to look over their shoulders.

“You there,” the lab manager said, pointing at them. “Come here and help them get him out.”

Natasha gave Wanda a look that said it was going to be okay, though Wanda was having trouble swallowing the sentiment.

They made their way over to Pietro, who was starting to wake, groggy and moaning. Careful to keep their faces turned away from Stalker, they helped Pietro down. Someone came up with a collar and Wanda’s eyes fixed on it with hateful shock. Natasha felt her hackles rise. It wasn’t time yet. They had to be careful still. Not everything was in the right place.

“Let me do that,” Natasha said, holding out her hand.

The lab technician shrugged and gave the collar to her. Natasha put it on him, but only mimed locking it.

Pietro’s eyes were beginning to focus and he was still shuddering and shivering from the cold. He began to look around the room, searching to find his bearings. Then he looked at who was holding him.

It had been clear to Natasha that Wanda loved her brother from the dedication in their search, but it was another thing to see the relief and the care and the joy on her face when she saw that her brother recognized her.

Pietro’s confusion was tempered by his relief at seeing Wanda and his drooping, nodding head was getting steadier, a smile on his face.

“Get him in the tank,” Stalker snapped.

“Now?” Wanda asked.

“Wait,” Natasha said.

The lab manager nodded to them. “Put Project Quicksilver in the holding cell on level 4. I’ll be there to check on him after the asset is contained.”

“Understood,” Natasha said, voice clip and official.

Stalker grabbed the Winter Soldier by the arm, a possessive, hard grip.

At the look in the soldier’s eyes, it was clear that whatever Wanda had done to his mind, it had worked.

Stalker didn’t have time to process the hand around his throat. His face just reacted, the little cool he had left completely abandoning him to twist in agony and surprise.

“ _SPUTNIK!_ ” Stalker forced through the choke.

Whatever effect it meant to have, it didn’t. The Winter Soldier threw Stalker across the room, and Stalker hit the side of the freezing chamber with a hollow metallic sound before crumbling to the ground.

“Get him out of here!” said the lab manager, shepherding Natasha, Wanda and Pietro out of the lab. They played the part of surprised non-combatants well, moving past the guards that were entering the room to make their exit.

As the door began to shut behind them, Natasha looked behind her to check her six. Stalker was staring straight at her. His temple was cut and blood was getting into his eye, but he could see her. He recognized her. The hate that was coming off of Stalker could have turned the door that shut behind her into a pool of molten gray.


	11. Chapter 11

The emergency lights had come on, alarms buzzing and lights flashing. They were moving in the direction of the stairwell, with the rest of the non-combatant Hydra agents.

“Keep your heads down,” Natasha said through the sound of the alarm.

Pietro and Wanda dipped their heads. Pietro’s sagging was more performative now than it had been, and Natasha was glad for it. They looked like lab workers, not guards.

They ducked into the stairwell and waited in the space under the stairs.  No one noticed them crouched there and soon no one else was coming through the door.

“Get this thing off,” Wanda said, pulling off Pietro’s unlocked collar. The two of them fell into a hard embrace, Pietro burying his face deep into his sister’s shoulder. They were holding on to each other so hard that their bodies shook. Wanda’s sobs turned into joyful laughing.

“Okay, kids,” Natasha said, wishing she hadn’t. “We have to cut the reunion short if we’re getting out of here under Hydra’s nose.”

“You know, plan A still stands,” Wanda growled.

Natasha’s head tilted to the side, as if she were really considering it. She put her morbid thoughts aside and got back to work.

#

The schematics of the building were in Natasha’s head as crisply as if she had a tablet out in front of her. The responsibility of leading the Maximoffs  safely out of the Hydra base settled on her and she glared ahead with the kind of focus she hadn’t had for years.

If they stuck to the contingencies, they could get out relatively quickly. If they were especially careful, neither of the Maximoffs would have to give them away by using their powers.

That was becoming a shaky ‘if.’

The twins had a look in their eye. It was smoldering, and the hate seemed to rise every time they passed by another Hydra agent. They still looked like they were moving a prisoner, Pietro having fastened, but not locked, his collar around his neck.

They were nearing the freight elevator when a group of guards stepped in front of them. One held his hand out to stop them.

“The freight elevator is out of service,” he growled, giving Natasha the impression that ‘out of service’ meant simply ‘an exit we don’t want the Winter Soldier to use.’

“Out of service, huh?” Pietro said.

Natasha’s brain groaned ‘ _oh no_ ’ before her mouth could get to it. She wondered if he even could yet for a moment before Pietro disappeared into a stream of color and light.

She’d never seen anything like it before. The guards were all thrown around like rag dolls from inside this tornado of motion. Not missing a beat, Wanda’s hands glowed with red energy and they all were thrown into the ceiling, unconscious by the time they hit the ground.

“Well,” Natasha said. “I was going to talk my way out of this, but I guess this works. They probably saw that, though.”

Natasha pointed to the security camera above the freight elevator. If they hadn’t acted so quickly, she would have had Wanda disable the camera, but what was done was done.

“Let them come,” Wanda said, her fingers glowing and moving in anticipation.

Natasha felt what little control she had begin to slip away. She pictured the sinkhole that Wanda had wanted to open in the earth, burying everything and everyone alive. She shivered at the thought of that, despite there being no innocent lives under the first floor of the building. She knew Wanda would do it without getting the innocent people above out, but Natasha still didn’t know what she thought about a massacre. She’d seen them before. She didn’t want Wanda to wander around with that weight on her conscience.

“If we get in the elevator there might be people waiting at the top,” Natasha said. “Are you ready for that.”

Pietro laced his fingers and cracked his knuckles. “I’m ready if you are, sister.”

“Let’s fight some Nazis,” Wand said.

They got on the elevator and pushed the button for the ground floor. The door closed and it began to rise…slowly. The three of them waited in silence, standing in a row, hands folded in front of them.

“So,” Pietro asked. “How did you and my sister meet?”

Natasha raised a brow and began to think about the best way to word it, then deciding on honesty.

“I helped the KGB kidnap her,” she said.

“Oh,” Pietro said.

“It’s okay,” Wanda chimed in. “We’re friends now.”

The freight elevator opened with a ping and when the door spread open, five guns were pointed at them.

Wanda and Pietro went to work, taking them out, while Natasha moved to the control panel of the elevator, prying it open and examining the wires inside. She jammed one thing and pulled out another and knew that no one would be able to move this elevator for a long time.

“Okay, guys,” Natasha said. “Let’s—”

Something tugged on her clothes and pulled her back, an arm folding around her neck. The familiar feeling of metal against her skin stopped her cold. Someone was holding a knife to her neck.

Pietro and Wanda turned around, Wanda’s eyes widening in fear. There could only be one person who would go to the lengths of getting on top of the freight elevator, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

“Stalker,” Wanda spat. “I thought your dog finally turned on you.”

“I’ll pay you back for that,” Stalker promised, his breath hot in Natasha’s ear.

Stalker wasn’t just holding Natasha hostage—she was his human shield. He made himself small behind her.

He took the knife away for just a moment and took something off his belt. He threw it toward Wanda and it hit the ground with a thud. The control collar. He put the knife back on Natasha’s neck.

“Put it on,” Stalker said. “Both of you. And turn them on properly. I’ll know if you don’t.”

Pietro and Wanda glanced at each other, and whatever unspoken twin-language had passed between them, Natasha couldn’t translate it. Wanda picked up the collar and rotated it in her hands, then looking up from her bowed head to glare at Stalker. He pushed the knife into Natasha’s skin. She hissed and the wet stream of a rivulet of blood heated her skin as it trickled down.

“Don’t do it,” Natasha said. “Get out of here.”

Something passed over Wanda’s face. A softness and a wanting. It was in the way she looked at Natasha that told her everything. Natasha felt weak in the knees. It was how much Wanda cared, the deep longing in her eyes. Of course she wouldn’t leave Natasha, like she rightly should. Natasha wanted nothing more than for Wanda to be safe, and unfortunately Wanda felt the same about Natasha. Natasha had somehow found her way into the circle of people Wanda would do anything to protect, a circle that included the brother they had come to extract.

Natasha hated herself in that moment. If she hadn’t allowed Wanda to get close to her, maybe this moment wouldn’t be happening. Natasha could make the sacrifice play and something bigger and better than herself could survive. But that wasn’t the way this was going to go.

Because Stalker would never stop.

Wanda put on the collar. Pietro reached behind his neck to activate his own. They looked like downtrodden circus animals, whipped in order to jump through flaming hoops.

“Now…,” Stalker said, seething through closed teeth. “We’re going to go down—”

The sound of a gunshot ricocheted off the walls and Pietro and Wanda ducked. In the closed space of the hallway the shot deafened them.

Natasha’s body buckled before she felt the gunshot wound. She collapsed on the floor and heard Stalker stumbled behind her.

She turned her head to see. Stalker was holding his stomach. The gunshot wound had turned his belly into a profusely bleeding wound. Holding the blood back with his hands was futile, but Stalker tried anyway.

Natasha looked down at her own wound. It was above her hip and it hurt like hell, but it was barely bleeding. It had gone right through her and into him. She lifted her head to see where it had come from.

The Winter Soldier’s gun was still held out in front of him, like he’d been frozen in time when he took the shot. The gun was smoking and he was staring at Stalker with a rage that Natasha had never seen before.

Stalker wheeled back and fell back against the elevator wall. He left a trail of blood as he slid down, finally falling onto his rear.

Forgetting any danger, Wanda scrambled and picked Natasha up off the elevator floor. They got up slowly, but Natasha could move well enough that she knew that the Winter Soldier had not just taken out Stalker, but done it by missing all of Natasha’s organs with precision aim.

She was sure she was meant to be grateful, but there was a hole in her body.

The Winter Soldier lowered his gun in a slow arc. He was trembling slightly and he wouldn’t take his eyes off of Stalker, who was clutching the wound in his stomach with a shaking hand. His breathing was hard and erratic. Natasha recognized that breathing. The wound was much worse than hers. He’d hit something unfixable, something mortal.

Then he began to laugh. He was sputtering, blood spraying out of his mouth as he laughed. Stalker wasn’t through with them yet. Something dropped in Natasha’s stomach that had nothing to do with her abdominal wound.

“You really think this is over, don’t you?” Stalker said. “You think I haven’t thought of what would happen to you if you killed me?”

Wanda and Pietro looked at each other, concern and fear rising in them. Every eye in the room turned to Stalker, whose smile was like a red wound which showed stained teeth underneath. He spat the mouthful of blood onto the floor in front of him and seethed.

“Contingencies,” Stalker said. “Contingencies, contingencies. All you’ve managed to do is add that dog to the list of assets we need to contain. They’ll be coming for you. I’m not the only one like me out there. Do you think you’ll ever be safe? I know the answer to that. You’ll be asleep in your bed, thinking that at last, you’re safe, and then we’ll come. We always secure our assets.”

Wanda stood up. Pietro grabbed Natasha around the waist and stood her up, all of them backing out of the elevator.

“You think you can contain us?” Wanda said. “You and your little band of nazis?”

“Cut off one head—,” Stalker began.

“Damn the head. I’m going to cut the heart out of you.”

Wanda lifted her hands and the elevator shook. There was the sound of creaking, bending metal.

Stalker raised his hand, holding it as if were a gun and pulled it back.

Wanda threw her hands down and the elevator dropped.

Seven stories later they heard the crash.

No one could have survived that.

Natasha leaned over the precipice and saw the bottom of the shaft. If the drop hadn’t killed him, which it would have, the elevator was crushed into a blob of twisted metal.

More than that, she knew he was dead. The relief she felt almost had her shaking hard enough that her knees were buckling. Pietro grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her back.

They stood in silence for a long while, listening to the sounds of the evacuation alarms in the floors above. The building would be emptying out of civilians and Hydra personnel alike.

“Wanda,” Natasha said.

“Yes?” Wanda asked.

“Is it too late to do that whole bury this place in a sinkhole idea?”

Wanda smirked. Sure, they wouldn’t be killing too many Hydra agents, if any were left there at all, but Natasha wanted to see this place gone.

She lifted her head to see the Winter Soldier still standing there. Natasha chucked her chin at him and caught his attention.

“Hey,” she said. “You know a back way outta here?”

#

Their vantage point from the rooftop was the best for the spectacle as any in Budapest. The sinkhole opened in a perfect circle. The building collapsed like a controlled explosion, everything going inwards, nothing falling out into the streets and buildings around it. The people outside the building screamed and ran, but there was no danger to them.

In the end, Wanda collapsed, a sheen of sweat on her brow.

“I’ve got to get better at this,” Wanda said.

“You will,” Pietro promised. “And then we’ll take them all on.”

Natasha turned and saw the Winter Soldier standing there, watching the carnage as if from behind a veil. He wasn’t processing the raw power just yet, used to as he must have been to much different sights on his missions.

“Hey,” Natasha said. “You okay?”

The soldier’s brows ticked together. It was probably something nobody had asked him in years. However long he had been Hydra’s pet project. She didn’t expect an answer. He didn’t seem to be the chatty kind.

“It’s okay, Bucky,” Wanda said. “It’s over.”

_Bucky_. The name was familiar, but Natasha was still sweating and woozy from the bullet wound and the minor blood loss. Wanda had been in his head. That must have been his real name. It was kind of old fashioned, for a given name, she thought.

Whatever Natasha thought of it, it had clearly unmoored the Winter Soldier. Bucky, she told herself to start referring to him. She wasn’t about to use the name they gave to him now that he had a real one.

“What are you going to do?” Natasha asked.

“I—,” he struggled, as if he hadn’t heard his voice in a very long time. “I don’t know…”

“You know, we know a guy that can get you a passport. We’re going to Berlin. It should be safe there. Why don’t you come with us?”

Natasha wasn’t about to force him to do anything. If he wanted to go into hiding, become a ghost, figure out who he was, or even get revenge, it wasn’t something she was about to begrudge him.

“What’s in Berlin?” Bucky asked.


	12. Epilogue

Showering never felt more like a luxury than when there was time for it, when you didn’t have to take precautions not to be surprised, slippery and naked. Not something Natasha wanted to repeat. She pulled on the fluffy four-star bathrobe and pulled it tight against her. Wandering out into the room, her feet sunk into the luxe carpet. She picked up the remote next to her bed and pressed the button for the curtains. The mechanical curtains hissed open, revealing a wall of windows.

Berlin was lit up. Natasha always thought it never got enough attention. The sea of lights stretched out in front of their hotel room, the Fernsehturn sitting in the corner of her vision, antennae lit up red, pinning the landscape down. One of the older buildings near their hotel room was lit up in moving colors, an art instillation projecting images on the marble-white exterior. The haze of the city was purplish, feeding up into the blackness.

Natasha crossed her arms over her chest. She’d never be safe, not really. Not with her past, not with what she’d done to destabilize the infrastructure of two agencies, one of which she formerly belonged to. There would always be people out to get her. But for once it was nice to stand in front of a large window, vulnerable, like she didn’t have anything to worry about.

The door unlocked behind her and she turned to see Wanda and Pietro coming in, giggling like kids. Pietro saw that Natasha was in a robe and his eyes went wide.

“Oh,” Pietro said. “I can come back.”

“It’s okay,” Natasha said, rubbing her hair with another towel. “I’m decent enough.”

Wanda pulled Pietro into the room, his bashfulness going away by a smidge.

“How did it go?” Natasha asked.

“Lot of paperwork,” Pietro said. “I thought there’d be an informal handshake and _boom_ , we’re working for the Americans. But the process is started.”

Wanda nodded. “They’re even looking into giving up dual Sokovian/American citizenship, if they can strong-arm the embassies.”

Natasha smirked. She knew that if it came down to it, they’d never let go of being Sokovian. It was so wound up in who they were, in what they believed in. There was no doubt in Natasha’s mind that they’d come back, time and again, whenever the country might need them. She wondered if SHIELD knew how thoroughly they’d entangled themselves in Sokovian politics. Time would tell how they handled that.

“How about _Bucky_?” Natasha asked, still not used to the Winter Soldier having an identity—and a shocking one at that.

“I had to convince him he’d be okay without me,” Wanda said. “He’s heeling next to me like a puppy. But he’s starting to remember who he is.”

“It would take a lot out of me, too,” Pietro said. “I’m not even American and I know who Bucky Barnes is. Remembering all that would throw me for a loop.”

“He’ll be okay. Especially because I told them that if they treat him like a prisoner I would crush their bones with my mind.”

Natasha’s eyebrow ticked and there was that fuzzy, warm tingle all over her body again.

“So,” Natasha said. “We’re all agents of SHIELD. Working for the good guys, huh?”

“It’ll be a nice change of pace,” Pietro said. “So long at they are who they say they are.”

“What happens if they’re not?” Wanda asked.

“Then we burn it to the ground,” Natasha said.

Wanda straightened up and something about the way she was looking at her made Natasha tingle all over.

Pietro’s eyes went wider as he looked between the two of them. He hemmed into his mouth and then began to shift on his feet.

“Well, uh,” Pietro began. “I should probably—woof, I’m _tired_ , you know? I’m going to—bye, sis.”

He kissed his sister on the cheek, just a quick peck. He wasn’t using his speed to slip out of the room, but he was so quick about it that he might as well have been.

Wanda looked, of all things, bashful after he exited the room, leaving them all alone.

“So…,” Wanda said.

“So,” replied Natasha.

 

 

Wanda came closer, and they were only inches away. Wanda was taller than Natasha, which made her a little weak. She’d always liked it when girls were taller than her, which was fortunate, considering she was only five three.

“You want to hear something funny?” Wanda said.

“Always,” Natasha said with a smirk.

“I’ve never flown on a plane before.”

“Scared?”

“I’m more worried about you, considering the way you tell every time I pick you up.”

Natasha had to laugh. “I guess the old fashioned way of flying will be a little boring.”

Wanda’s expression perked up and a slow smile spread across her face. “I would definitely say I lost my fear of flying a long while ago.”

She stepped a little closer and Natasha’s breath hitched in her throat. Wanda reached up and held her by the jaw.

“You know,” Natasha whispered. “All this talk of flying—”

Whatever she was about to say fell out of her head. She felt weightless, like there was no ground under her feet and Wanda was pulling them up into the air, but it was just the way she made Natasha feel.

Wanda slipped her hand into Natasha’s bathrobe and stroked the side of her midsection, then gripping her fast as they pulled closer to each other. The bullet wound was less sensitive, but it was still covered by a square of gauze.

“You’ll be there, won’t you?” Wanda asked.

“Hmm?” Natasha asked, barely aware of her surroundings.

“In America. This doesn’t end here, tonight, does it?”

Natasha’s eyes focused on Wanda’s face. There was a soft, fragile kind of fear in her face. She stroked the side of Wanda’s cheek and brushed her hair away from her forehead.

“This isn’t how things end,” Natasha said. “This is how they start.”

Wanda smiled and she raised her hand. It haloed in red and Natasha heard the curtains close, without the use of the electric remote. The city disappeared behind those curtains. Wanda kissed her again. Natasha didn’t care if it felt like they were flying because the kiss felt new and full of promise and wonderfully light or they might really be hovering inches above the floor. It would have made no difference at all.

**Author's Note:**

> noncorporealform: this has been a fantastic bang, and i'm really glad to have written my first scarletwidow fic for it! my artists have been amazing and i've loved working with them. please lavish on them all the adoration. thanks to the hardworking mods for the capbb2018! and thanks to my awesome beta, [dracusfyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracusfyre), who's always fantastic! 
> 
> you can occasionally find me [on tumblr](http://noncorporealform.tumblr.com).
> 
> Daphneblithe: thanks so much to @noncorporealform for the inspirational fic! And thanks to the CapBB mods for organizing an amazing bang. My tumblr is at <https://daphneblithe.tumblr.com>. xx
> 
> looktotheskies: All my love to Max and Daph, a couple of very talented people. Thank you to the wonderful CapBB mods for putting this all together. If you want, you can find me here or at [childofwintre.tumblr.com](http://childofwintre.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Three sketches of Wanda/Nat, for @noncorporealform's fic STALKER](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16309934) by [art_by_daphneblithe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/art_by_daphneblithe/pseuds/art_by_daphneblithe)




End file.
